Country Group: South and Southeast Asia (Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam)

Item id: 10870

15/16 century northern Thai Buddha. This is absolutely of the very highest quality for this type of Buddha. The sculpting and casting are incredible. It was almost surely created at a Royal foundry, as no place else was capable of doing this level of work. In 35 years I’ve only had two or three other Buddhas of this type that were of this special quality. Those Buddhas had a jade green patina and were slightly larger, and they sold in the $20,000 to $35,000 range, as they were so sought after by high level collectors who knew exactly what they were. Look closely at the surface, which is smooth as glass from an incredible finishing job. Spend time with the photos, looking at the face, the body and hands, and at the lines of the figure which are graceful and clean. It is missing most of its base, which was not uncommon on very high-quality Buddhist from that time period, as they removed bases from some high quality Buddhas during times of a shortage of bronze or the materials to make bronze to make new Buddhas. This was primarily during times of war. It seems like the Buddhist missing their bases for this reason are primarily the high-quality ones as they wanted to carry forward the positive energy from the earlier castings. They generally try and leave the body intact and take the base only. There is a casting flaw on the stomach, where the bronze must have gotten thin during the casting process. It is not damage, but part of the original process. It was covered by lacquer and gilding when the statue was first made, but is now visible. This does not hurt the statue and it is completely stable. It is a visual imperfection only. I found a base that was designed for another purpose and used it here as a temporary base for this Buddha. It does not work perfectly, but it does display it nicely. You have to fiddle with it a little bit to get it to sit just right. If you put it on a surface by itself. It does not sit flat. It would benefit from a new custom base. Spend time looking at the photos as they tell the story better than any description possibly could. A personal favorite, and a very high class Buddha. ( 11.5"H x 7"W x 3"D ) 6 lbs