This Buddha image embodies the qualities of inner radiant calm and stillness, the products of supreme wisdom. He dispenses reassurance and protection to his followers with a raised hand held in abhaya-mudra, the ‘fear not’ gesture. The Buddha is robed in the simple uncut cloth of a monk, gracefully drawn around the body so as to define form, to create an image that is at once ethereal and sensuous. A state of Buddhahood is defined iconographically by the presence of a series of auspicious markings (lakshanas): here we see the attenuated earlobes, protruding skull and webbing between the fingers. Taken together these features, both natural and supernatural, denote preordained sanctity and a state of Buddhahood. Few metal Buddha images survived the collapsed of monastic Buddhism in the late 12th century, and most that are preserved did so in Tibet, where they had been spirited away for safety in the medieval period.
[ Claude de Marteau , Brussels, by 1969, sold to MMA]
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Schroeder, Ulrich von. Indo-Tibetan Bronzes. Hong Kong: Vishual Dharma Publications, 1981, p. 216, fig. 45A.
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Kossak, Steven M. "The Arts of South and Southeast Asia." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. n.s., Vol. 51, no. 4 (Spring 1994), p. 29, fig. 18.
Lerner, Martin. "The Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for the Arts of South and Southeast Asia." Orientations. Vol. 25, no. 3 (March 1994), p. 40, fig. 2.
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Guy, John. "The Essential Form: Collecting South and Southeast Asian Sculpture at the Met." Orientations. Vol. 46, no.2 (March 2015), pp. 136–47, fig. 6.
Guy, John. "Parading the Buddha in the Post-Gupta Age: A Newly Discovered Masterpiece of Indian Bronze Sculpture." Orientations 47, no. 2 (March 2016). pp. 102–12, fig. 12.
Graldi, Aurora. "Travelling Icons and Travelling Donors. A Metal Buddha Image in The Cleveland Museum of Art." Orientations 49, no. 1 (2018). pp. 96–102.
Behrendt, Kurt. How to Read Buddhist Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019, pp. 14, 46–49, figs. 2, 28, 29.
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