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Buddha

6th century
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
This Buddha, among the earliest known from Southeast Asia, was reportedly found in Malaysia in the 1950s. It exhibits distinctive features of deportment, gesture, arrangement of robes, and large flat curls that establish it as a work of non-Indian manufacture. Presumably based on imported models from the fifth- and sixth-century Deccan, this work makes clear the speed with which local workshops appropriated foreign models and made them their own. This bronze was likely associated with a Buddhist monastery active in the Malay Peninsula in the sixth century.
cat. no. 21

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Buddha
  • Date: 6th century
  • Culture: Malay Peninsula
  • Medium: Copper alloy
  • Dimensions: H. 10 7/8 in. (27.5 cm); W. 3 1/8 in. (8 cm); D. 2 3/4 in. (7 cm)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Lent by Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Gift of David Knight, 1993 (IS.61-1993)
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art