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Lot Essay
This figure of Buddha is a later example made in the style of Prakhon Chai, a region which flourished during the 7th – 9th centuries in northeastern Thailand. Situated along trade routes crossing from India, through Burma and Thailand, towards Cambodia and beyond, Prakhon Chai was a place of confluence, affluence, and the reception and transmission of great spiritual and artistic knowledge. The style displays a fusion of these international intersections in a uniquely local expression that would appear only in this particular place and only for a limited time.
As a center of Buddhist practice, primarily Mahayana Buddhism, the Prakhon Chai region produced figures of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that are depicted as ascetics; the figures are clad in the traditional Khmer and Thai sampot secured with a simple cord, and are otherwise unadorned, a departure from other Khmer styles in which bodhisattvas wear jewelry. As unifying stylistic features, the bodies of Prakhon Chai figures are strikingly slender and graceful, and the fingers of the four hands curl inwards towards the palm, as if the Buddha were delicately plucking flowers. The elaborate looping coiffure of the braided hair in the present example is also distinctive to the region, the looping strands neatly arranged in symmetrical rows, contrasting with the wild jatamukutas of Shaiva ascetics as they are depicted in India. Here the hair is centered by a stupa, the figure’s sole mark of identification as Maitreya.
This particular figure was included in a distinguished group of three Southeast Asian bronzes that sat on the corner of Mr. Ellsworth’s desk (see lots 28 and 29). When compared together, they created a dialogue between the various styles of the region, continually refining his eye for these artworks. Mr. Ellsworth would also have been reminded of his introduction to the art of the region by his mentor and close friend, Connie Mangskau, with whom he shared a passion for the sculpture of Southeast Asia.
As a center of Buddhist practice, primarily Mahayana Buddhism, the Prakhon Chai region produced figures of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that are depicted as ascetics; the figures are clad in the traditional Khmer and Thai sampot secured with a simple cord, and are otherwise unadorned, a departure from other Khmer styles in which bodhisattvas wear jewelry. As unifying stylistic features, the bodies of Prakhon Chai figures are strikingly slender and graceful, and the fingers of the four hands curl inwards towards the palm, as if the Buddha were delicately plucking flowers. The elaborate looping coiffure of the braided hair in the present example is also distinctive to the region, the looping strands neatly arranged in symmetrical rows, contrasting with the wild jatamukutas of Shaiva ascetics as they are depicted in India. Here the hair is centered by a stupa, the figure’s sole mark of identification as Maitreya.
This particular figure was included in a distinguished group of three Southeast Asian bronzes that sat on the corner of Mr. Ellsworth’s desk (see lots 28 and 29). When compared together, they created a dialogue between the various styles of the region, continually refining his eye for these artworks. Mr. Ellsworth would also have been reminded of his introduction to the art of the region by his mentor and close friend, Connie Mangskau, with whom he shared a passion for the sculpture of Southeast Asia.