Page 12 - Bonhams IMages of Devotion, Hong Kong Nov 30 2022

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A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF AVALOKITESHVARA
SRIVIJAYA, SOUTHERN THAILAND, 8TH /9TH CENTURY
15 cm (5 7/8 in.) high
HKD140,000 - 160,000

室利佛逝 泰國南部 八/九世紀 觀音銅像

This rare bronze of Avalokiteshvara is presented with a hieratic slender in the
mature style of the powerful Kingdom of Shrivijaya, which spanned from Indonesia
over Malaysia to Southern Thailand. The presence of Amitabha Buddha set
within his finely detailed jatamakuta identifies this figure as the bodhisattva of
compassion.

Another four-armed Avalokiteshvara shares similarity in hairstyle and facial
expression, and originally found in a riverbed at Palembang, Sumatra, in 1930,
though is now in the Museum National, Jakarta (see Konigreiche, Indonesiens,
Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim, 1995, cat. no. 9.

For another example of an Avalokiteshvara image, see Diskul, The Art of Shrivijaya,
1980, pl. 25. Also see Van Beek, The Arts of Thailand, 1985, p. 24. Compare
with an earlier two-armed Maitreya in Chutiwongs & Leidy, Buddha of the Future,
Singapore, 1994, no. 47, p. 81. Also compare with a mid-10th century Lokanatha
and Siva Mahadeva dated in the Songkhla National Museum published in
Krairiksh, The Roots of Thai Art, 2012, pp. 177 & 248. Also compare with a related
figure sold at Bonhams, New York, 17 September 2014, lot 172.

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