Stone

Stone shaped by hand and set upright in a field. Stone figurative sculpture here includes Cross River akwanshi ancestral figures, Kissi figures from Sierra Leone, Bura funerary markers from Niger, and Hindu, Jain and Buddhist carvings from India, Indonesia, Burma and China. The akwanshi, worked from boulders, are generally thought to commemorate ancestors and past leaders. Kissi stone figures, some dated to the 17th century, were often found by farmers in the ground and later kept in shrines, as the usual account goes.

Jain temple fragments from Gujarat and Kutch show monkeys, lions, elephants and felines; 17th century Shanxi temple pillars carry a contemplative monkey and a crouching man; East Javanese lava stone gives a head of Shiva and a standing Tara. There are Makrana marble Krishnas and Radhas from Jaipur, Jaisalmer stone Mahaviras, a Burmese alabaster Buddha and white jade Quan Yin figures. Set a fragment on a plinth in a garden room, or a figure in a niche. Stone has patience to spare.