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 of the savior Avalokiteshvara bears eloquent witness to the importance of the Mahayana Buddhist cult of the bodhisattva in pre-Angkorian Cambodia. It signals a taste for large devotional sculptures, undoubtedly installed in well-endowed temples where they would have served as important cult icons. The sensitively modeled and incised facial rendering and the distinctive braided crown of matted hair (jatamukuta) links this head to other seventh-century figures, some of which must share common workshops. The production of Brahmanical and Buddhist imagery in the same workshops seems clear.
cat. no. 135
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