G756.8 BRONZE FIGURE OF BUDDHA SEATED IN BHUMISPARSIMUDRA
NORTHERN THAILAND
LAN NA-CHIANG SAEN STYLE
16TH -17TH CENTURY
H. 32 CMS, 12 ½ INS
A bronze figure of a Buddha, seated on a lotus pedestal with his right hand in bhumisparsimudra (the gesture of ‘summoning the earth to witness’), the face smiling and serene beneath a conical usnisha rising to a flame finial.
By 1297, under the leadership of the great King Mangrai, the kingdom of Lanna extended from Chiang Saen in the north as far as Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Lamphun and Lampang to the south. With its capital at Chiang Mai and its religion that of Theravada Buddhism, the Lan Na kingdom enjoyed a golden age throughout the 15th century and 16th centuries, until the Burmese conquest of the north in 1556.
For a related Buddha see no. 72 (dated 1533) in A.B. Griswold, Dated Buddha Images of Northern Siam, Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1959.
Provenance: From a collection in the West of England.
Previously in a collection in the Netherlands.