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Lot Essay
The iconography of Buddha Muchalinda is taken from a specific event in the life of Buddha Shakyamuni happening within six weeks before his Enlightenment at Bodhgaya in North India. It tells the story of the seven-headed serpent king Muchalinda who emerged from his subterranean abode and extended his large hood over the meditating Buddha in order to protect him during his meditation as a storm broke out.
The earliest images of naga-protected Buddha’s were likely made in the service of King Jayavarman VII (1181-1218), remembered for his grand construction of Buddhist monuments throughout the Khmer Empire. By the thirteenth century, Buddha Muchalinda was fully incorporated into the pantheon of Buddha’s postures, while at the same time, Lopburi stone sculpture began to differentiate itself from Khmer stylistic norms. Notably, as in the present example, faces became more individualized, filled in at the cheeks, and squat. A comparable example of a Lopburi Buddha Muchalinda, with the body surviving in full, is in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, illustrated by H.W. Woodward, Jr. in The Sacred Sculpture of Thailand: The Alexander B. Griswold Collection: The Walters Art Gallery, London, 1997, p. 112. The present lot appears to be scaled slightly larger; however, they share many stylistic similarities, such as the full face, the gently carved brows, and braided hair coiled into registers and surmounted with an ushnisha.
The earliest images of naga-protected Buddha’s were likely made in the service of King Jayavarman VII (1181-1218), remembered for his grand construction of Buddhist monuments throughout the Khmer Empire. By the thirteenth century, Buddha Muchalinda was fully incorporated into the pantheon of Buddha’s postures, while at the same time, Lopburi stone sculpture began to differentiate itself from Khmer stylistic norms. Notably, as in the present example, faces became more individualized, filled in at the cheeks, and squat. A comparable example of a Lopburi Buddha Muchalinda, with the body surviving in full, is in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, illustrated by H.W. Woodward, Jr. in The Sacred Sculpture of Thailand: The Alexander B. Griswold Collection: The Walters Art Gallery, London, 1997, p. 112. The present lot appears to be scaled slightly larger; however, they share many stylistic similarities, such as the full face, the gently carved brows, and braided hair coiled into registers and surmounted with an ushnisha.