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Lot Essay
Just a very few standing, crowned and bare-chested female devotees are known showing the adoration gesture. In Thai this gesture is known as wai. The figure is wearing a long sampot incised with various musters and secured with a belt. Around her hips are wrapped several sashes falling down with its ends curling out. She is adorned with necklaces, armlets, bracelets and bangles. The large size of the bronze figure and the fact she is placed on a lotus base suggest that she represents an important person, perhaps even of royal origin and associated with a divine status.
The bronze is cast in the northern regions of Thailand during the Lan Na period and most likely in the city of Chien Seng during the sixteenth century. Its style and sumptuous decoration can be found on the late fifteenth century stucco figures of the Wat Chedi Chet Yot in Chieng Mai (see J. Listopad, Early Thai Sculpture Reappraised: Thirteenth – sixteenth Century’, in Art of Thailand, (ed.) R. J. Brown, Marg Publications, Mumbai vol. 51, no 2, December 1999, p. 60). These stucco over brick figures are a bit less mannered executed and most likely slightly pre-date the presented impressive bronze female devotee.
J. Boisselier publishes a slightly smaller though later Lan Na bronze example in ‘La sculpture en Thailande’, Office du Livre, Fribourg, 2nd edition 1987, p. 159. C. Stratton in ‘Buddhist Sculpture of Northern Thailand’, Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai 2004, page 333, fig. 12.70, illustrates a much smaller female devotee bronze figure (25.5 cm).
The bronze is cast in the northern regions of Thailand during the Lan Na period and most likely in the city of Chien Seng during the sixteenth century. Its style and sumptuous decoration can be found on the late fifteenth century stucco figures of the Wat Chedi Chet Yot in Chieng Mai (see J. Listopad, Early Thai Sculpture Reappraised: Thirteenth – sixteenth Century’, in Art of Thailand, (ed.) R. J. Brown, Marg Publications, Mumbai vol. 51, no 2, December 1999, p. 60). These stucco over brick figures are a bit less mannered executed and most likely slightly pre-date the presented impressive bronze female devotee.
J. Boisselier publishes a slightly smaller though later Lan Na bronze example in ‘La sculpture en Thailande’, Office du Livre, Fribourg, 2nd edition 1987, p. 159. C. Stratton in ‘Buddhist Sculpture of Northern Thailand’, Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai 2004, page 333, fig. 12.70, illustrates a much smaller female devotee bronze figure (25.5 cm).