KHMER, ANGKOR PERIOD, BAPHUON STYLE, 11TH CENTURY

Details

An Important Sandstone Figure of Uma
Khmer, Angkor Period, Baphuon Style, 11th Century
Very finely carved in the round, the face with a benign expression and intricately braided hair rising to a domed topknot with lotus flowerhead at top, flanked by long pierced pendulous lobes, her sampot wrapped around the waist revealing the contours of the body and forming a fishtail sash, all with a very fine polish
27¾ in. (70.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Spink and Son, Ltd., acquired in November 1984.

Literature

W. Felten and M. Lerner, Das Erbe Asiens, Skulpturen der Khmer und Thai vom 6. zum 14. Jahrhundert, 1988, cat. no. 23, pp. 216-17 and ill.
W. Felten and M. Lerner, Thai and Cambodian Sculpture from the 6th to the 14th centuries, 1989 (English translation), cat. no. 23, pp. 216-17 and ill.

Lot Essay

This superb sculpture is most remarkable for the tactile quality of its highly polished surface suggestive of youthful skin.
Baphuon period sculptures with a smooth diaphanous sampot rather than incised with pleats are very rare and likely date to the earlier part of the 11th century; compare with a torso from the collection of John D. Rockefeller 3rd, in S. Lee, Ancient Cambodian Sculpture, 1969, cat. no. 20, ill. p. 58.

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