SRI LANKA, KANDYAN PERIOD, 18TH CENTURY

This sculpture is among the largest of its type and solidly cast, as is characteristic for Sri Lankan bronze sculpture beginning with the late Anuradhapura period (9th century), and as dictated by the Sariputra, the canon of proportions for making Buddhist images. The remarkable consistency of style among Kandyan period sculpture is partly the result of the employment of matrices of body parts for the wax models in preparing the casts. However, while Kandyan sculpture is consistent in its broad shouldered outline, there is considerable variation in the rendering of the robe, with various degrees of undulation in the wave patterns of the folds, as well as the hemline of the sanghati draped across the left shoulder; for further examples see U. Von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures of Sri Lanka, 1990, pl. 165-67.