This fragment of a fresco in fine hard stucco has impress of reeds behind. The paint is laid over a thin facing of white plaster. This fragment may have belonged to the left part of a vesica or background of a large figurine. On the left is a straight border of lotus leaves, outlined in red and filled in with white paint. An elliptical panel on the right contains a Buddha sitting on a lotus throne in front of a white background, outlined with red colour. The hands of the Buddha are lying in its lap, the garment is painted in red. The background of the inner border is of a light green. It was excavated from the remains of a Buddhist shrine at the site of Kara-Yantak between Khotan and Keriya in Xinjiang, China.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has more than 70 ceramic fragments and fragments of Buddhist sculptures, as well as around 600 ancient and medieval textiles recovered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943) during his second expedition (1906-8) into Chinese Central Asia, where he once again visited and excavated sites on the southern Silk Road, before moving eastwards to Dunhuang. At Dunhuang, he studied and excavated the Han-dynasty watchtowers to the north of the town, as well as the Mogao cave temples to the southeast, where he acquired material from the Library Cave. From there he moved on to the northern Silk Road, stopping briefly at Turfan sites but not carrying out any excavations. He made a perilous north-south crossing of the Taklamakan desert in order to hasten to Khotan where he excavated more ancient sites, before finishing off his expedition with surveying in the Kunlun Mountains.