A RARE AND LARGE SANDSTONE HEAD OF HARIHARA, CHAM PERIODOpinion: This is a very early example of Harihara from Southeast Asia, of a type and size rarely encountered, and was likely once part of an important temple statue.Vietnam, former kingdoms of Champa, 5th-7th century. A sensitively carved serene face surmounted by a circular miter, having a forehead with a vertical third eye above a connected brow, with a mustachioed smile, and long pendulous earlobes.Provenance: The Phillips Family Collection, Lawrence and Shirley Phillips, and thence by descent to Michael Phillips (born 1943), who is an Academy Award-winning film producer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, his parents were Lawrence and Shirley Phillips, noted New York dealers in Asian fine arts, selling to the Met, the LACMA, the Chicago Art Institute, and the British Museum among others. Michael Phillips is a collector of Asian art himself, particularly Indian, Southeast Asian, and Himalayan sculpture. His most important films include The Sting (winning the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1973), Taxi Driver (winning the Palme d’Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival), and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.Condition: Good condition,mensurate with age. Extensive wear, losses, nicks, scratches, signs of weathering and erosion.Dimensions: Height 49 cm (incl. stand) and 40 cm (excl. stand)Mounted on an associated stand. (2)The image of Harihara served as an icon representing the integration of both Shiva and Vishnu. This unified deity was created as a political effort to unite the followers of Saivism and Vaisnavism. Several legends were created over the centuries to support the religious union. Representational images of Shiva, whether singular or inbined form, are rarely encountered in early works from Vietnam. Early Vietnamese imagery of Shiva is usually restricted to types of linga.The current lot could be considered one of the earliest representations from the region depicting Shiva as Harihara, displaying the facial characteristics and crown of Vishnubined with the third eye of Shiva. Not until around the 7th century do we start to prominently see the moremonly recognized duality of Harihara in Southeast Asia with iconography displaying the deity physically split into two halves.Literatureparison:See a closely related head of Harihara excavated at Oc Eo, believed to be one of the earliest Vietnamese examples, dated to the 5th century, illustrated in Indradjaya, Early Traces of Hinduism and Buddhism Across the Java Sea, p. 120, fig. 89.13% VAT will be added to the hammer price additional to the buyer’s – only for buyers within the EU.