A Thai Buriram province copper alloy figure of Avalokiteshvara. 7th/8th century

A Thai Buriram province copper alloy figure of Avalokiteshvara. 7th/8th century

Standling in slight tribhanga, his right hand holding a lotus bud, the left hand a kamandalu, wearing a short sampot secured by a cord, the face with bushy brows, large eyes and a long moustache, the hair arranged in tiers of looped curls covering the head and jatamakuta. Thick patina. The feet restored. Wooden base.
Height 33.5 cm

This bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara probably belongs to the so-called Phrakon Chai cache of Buddhist sculptures discovered 1964 by Thai farmers. The cache was actually found in a buried chamber within a temple precinct on a hill (Khao Plai Bat II) east of the village Yai Yaem, in the district of Lahan Sai, in Buriram province, and consisted of around two to three hundred figures ranging in size from 7 to 120 cm. The bronze figures, mostly Avalokitshvara and Maitreya are fine examples of the Buddhist art of the Canasha kingdom (7th-10th century) located on the Korat Plateau. Their main characteristic is a slender elegant body bare of any jewellery and a short sarong wrapped around the hips. They were inserted into a bronze plinth, which was sent into a stone base.

Provenance

Old private collection, France, since the 1940is by descent

Literature

Jean Boisselier, Notes sur l’art du bronze dans l’ancien Cambodge, in: Artibus Asiae, Vol. XXIX,4 (1967), pp. 275-334; Emma Bunker, Pre-Angkor Period Bronzes from Pra Kon Chai, in: Archives of Asian Art, 25 (1971-1972), p. 67-76, and the same author, The Prakhon Chai Story, Fact and Fiction, in: Arts of Asia, vol. 32, no. 2 (March-April 2002), p. 106-125