Atlas figure (atlantid) 

relief carving in gray schist

7 1/8  x 8 3/8 in. (excluding base)

Gandhara (Afghanistan/Pakistan)

circa 3rd century A.D.

Provenance: 

J. C. Moreau-Gobard, Paris, 1966

Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Cecil Y. Lang.  Dr. Cecil Y. Lang (1920-2003) was a distinguished editor and scholar of English literature who was on the faculty of the University of Virginia.  He was an expert on Swinburne, Tennyson, and Arnold, among others, as well as the Pre-Raphaelites.  He and his wife, Violette Guérin-Lésé (1925-2020), were art collectors, who amassed a prodigious collection of Gandharan sculpture which they sold at Sotheby's upon his retirement.

Sotheby's, New York, March 21, 1990, Lot 198, at which sale acquired by the present owner, Jack Daulton

The kneeling Atlas figure with his hands raised and formerly supporting a molding, with elephant feet and large wings in relief, and wearing a short striated dhoti.  A wonderful combination of the terrestrial and the celestial, the earthbound and the airborne!