Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Head of Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Not on view
This head—all that survives of one of the finest metal images of Avalokiteshvara from the Cham territories—attests to the superb metal-casting skills of Cham artisans. A large diadem with three floral medallions frames Avalokiteshvara’s face, and Amitabha Buddha is perched between the crown and the chignon. A rectangular hole behind the front medallion was likely intended to receive a relic (sarira), inserted as part of the image’s consecration ritual. The towering jata of braided hair belongs to a pan–Southeast Asian bodhisattva type that was emerging during the eighth and ninth centuries.
cat. no. 168
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