Ca. 100-300 AD. Gandharan. A schist stone statue of Atlas. He is shown with his characteristic iconography within Gandharan art, appearing as a winged man crouching down. He has a muscular torso and tousled hair, and he leans on a cane held in his left hand. Atlas was a Titan in Greek mythology who was condemned to hold up the sky for all eternity, but figures of Atlas were popular adornment for Gandharan stupas; Buddhist burial sites or reliquaries. This region was greatly influenced by the conquests of Alexander the Great many centuries earlier and the subsequent Greek settlers, and so elements of Greek religion and art merged with Buddhist religion and art. For more information on Gandharan art, see Jongeward, D. (2019). Buddhist Art Of Gandhara in the Ashmolean Museum. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Size: L:195mm / W:155mm ; 2.25kg. Provenance: From the collection of a London gentleman; formerly acquired in early 2000s in Japan; previously in 1970s Japanese collection.