Stair Riser with Marine Deities or Boatment in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2009

Stair Riser with Marine Deities or Boatment
Pakistan, (probably Swat Valley)
1st century
Serpentine

Accession Number: 13.96.21

This sculpture and the triangular side relief (13.96.19) are part of a set of twenty one panels that embellished the stairway of a stupa, likely on the western end of the Swat Valley. The treatment of the anatomy is interesting in terms of both the naturalism and schematization of the musculature.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.