Provenance Information

By 1978, Private Collection, Chicago. Sold at Sotheby’s London, November 14, 1988, lot 66; Offered at Sotheby’s on March 21, 2012, as Property of a European Collector; Purchased at Sotheby’s by Jeffrey B. Soref on March 21, 2012; Gift of Jeff Soref and Paul Lombardi to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2015.

Exhibition Information

The work was exhibited in the 1978 exhibition The Ideal Image: The Gupta Sculptural Tradition and its Influence at the Asia Society, New York, at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1980 to 1985, and in 2014 at The Metropolitan Museum in Lost Kingdoms.

Publication Information

Thanphong Kridakon, Pramuan phap pratima [A Collection of Sculptures], 1965, no. 3; P. Pal, The Ideal Image: The Gupta Sculptural Tradition and its Influence, 1978, p. 122, no .76, and exhibited; Rhie, Marylin M. Interrelationships Between the Buddhist Art of China and the Art of India and Central Asia from 618–755 A.D. Supplemento n. 54 agli Annali, vol. 48 (1988) fasc. 1. Napoli: Instituto universitario orientale, 1988: 42, fig. 66; Sotheby’s London, November 14, 1988, lot 66; Sotheby’s NY, 21 March 2012, lot 242; J. Guy, Lost Kingdoms, MMA, 2014, p. 76, cat. 23, and exhibited.

Section of the AAMD Guidelines relied upon for the exception to 1970

Cumulative facts and circumstances

Explain why the object fits the exception set forth above

This work was first published in a Thai publication in 1965. The work has provenance established to 1978, when it was exhibited and published with an accompanying description and photograph in the catalog. The work was exhibited from 1980 to 1985 at the Art Institute of Chicago, and it was published in 2012 when it was offered for sale at auction by Sotheby’s. It was exhibited and published by the Metropolitan Museum in the 2014 exhibition Lost Kingdoms. This miniature icon of a Buddha expounding the dharma has the distinction of being among the earliest renderings of this subject known from Mon territories. The preaching Buddha seated with pendant legs became the signature icon of the monumental stupas built by the Mon state in 8th century central Thailand. The importance of this miniature icon of a Buddha lies in both its serving as an early prototype for such monumental Buddhas, and the likelihood that it is the earliest version of this subject known.