Page 82 - Bonhams NYC Indian and Himalayan Art March 2019

877
A LARGE COPPER ALLOY HEAD OF BUDDHA
CENTRAL THAILAND, AYUTTHAYA PERIOD, CIRCA 1500
17 5/8 in. (44.7 cm) high
$40,000 - 60,000
泰國中部 大城時期 約1500年 銅佛首

This most remarkable head of Buddha is of a rare and distinctive type, strongly associated
with Ayutthaya royal commissions, which Woodward describes as, “modeled in a style
that strives for remote grandeur” (Woodward, The Sacred Sculpture of Thailand, Bangkok,
1997, p.228). Woodward made these comments referring to a very closely related example
of the same size in the Walters Art Museum (fig.1, 54.2564). The present sculpture differs
in metallic composition, has a slightly thinner headband, and survives in better condition.
Yet the two share long and slender faces with pointed chins, thin and recessed crescent-
shaped smiles, elongated concave ears, brows converging on a narrow nose bridge,
slender upswept eyes, and small snail-shell hair curls. The effect, in the present sculpture, is
one of empyrean assuredness.

The facial qualities of this sculpture echo those appearing on a set of twenty-four images of
the Buddha made for Wat Phra Si Sanphet around the start of the 16th century. Wat Phra
Si Sanphet was the Ayutthaya royal family’s temple, built on the original palace grounds of
the kingdom’s founder King U-thong (r.1350-69), but later leveled by the Burmese in 1767.
Woodward surmises that the set of twenty-four Buddhas was saved and transported to
Wat Pho in Bangkok. The head of a deity from Wat Phra Si Sanphet exhibiting the same
facial features is now in the National Museum, Bangkok (ibid, p.240). Adding to this facial
type’s regal associations, Woodward suggests that it may also draw inspiration from a large
sculptural set of each of the Buddha’s five-hundred previous lives, commissioned in 1458
by Ayutthaya’s King Borommatrailokanat (r.1448-88; ibid, pp.186 & 228, fig.85).

Provenance
Collection of Pierre Combescot, 1965 – 2000.

Fig.1
Head of Buddha Thailand, Ayutthaya Late 15th-early
16th century Leaded tin brass 16 15/16in. (43 cm) high
The Walters Art Museum (54.2564)

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