A rare miniature Southeast Asian gold repousse figure

A rare miniature Southeast Asian gold repousse figure of Buddha ShakyamuniCirca 12th-14th centuryDepicted in the bhumisparsha mudra, dressed in a close-fitting upper garment with long sleeves and U-shaped neckline, the face with a gentle smile and open eyes beneath a continuous double-arched brow, fine curls and a pointed ushnisha, the palm and underside of the foot with a radiating circular motif, all on a slightly domed oval base.
H: 2 1/4 in.PROVENANCE:Doris Wiener Gallery, Inc., New York
Acquired from the above by the husband of the present owner, October 24, 1994 (As Burmese, 12th century)
NOTE: Such small gold figures of the Buddha, identified as the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, or the transcendant Buddha, Akshobhya are rarely encountered. Two Indonesian examples, dated to the 9th/10th century, are illustrated in Pratapaditya Pal, "A Collecting Odyssey, Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art from the James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection, New York, 1997, p. 300, nos. 129, 130. For a Sinhalese example of an embossed gold figure of Samadhi Buddha, with a core of sandlewood paste, 12th century, found in excavations of a relic chamber of a stupa at Dadigama, see Ulrich von Schroeder, "The Golden Age of Sculpture in Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, 1992, pp. 104-105, no 37. The stylistic features of the present Buddha, particularly the wide eyes in "rapt attention" and the joined arched brows, suggests a late Mon/Dvaravati date of the 9th-12th century, particularly from Burma or Northern Thailand during this period. Interestingly, the present Buddha also bears comparison to a bronze figure of the Buddha Subduing Mara, discovered in a crypt in Wat Ratburana in Ayudhya, Thailand, deposited in 1424, but quite possibly of earlier date, illustrated in Bowie et al, "The Sculpture of Thailand", New York 1972, p. 88, no 47. Compare also the 12th century miniature gold figure of Buddha Shakyamuni offered at Sotheby's Hong Kong, October 7, 2015, lot 3103.