Provenance:
Alexander Götz, London
European Private Collection, acquired in 1995
The Buddha is seated with his legs pendent in pralambhapada and feet resting on a disc, and with both hands makes the gesture of Turning the Wheel of Law (dharmacakra mudra). He wears a long monastic robe flowing over his body and pooled in folds around his ankles. The expression is one of austere meditation, and he has the prescribed elongated earlobes and hair in curls surmounted by a domed usnisa. A separately-cast oval nimbus is attached behind his head.
This sculpture recalls the famous seated Buddha at Candi Mendut (David Snellgrove (ed.), The Image of the Buddha, Paris/Tokyo, 1978, pl. 111). See also the bronze shrine in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (Pauline Lunsingh Scheurleer and Marijke J. Klokke, Ancient Indonesian Bronzes, Leiden, 1988, no. 24).
