Standing Buddha
591
- Medium
- bronze
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- Overall: 46.5 x 15.4 x 13.4 cm (18 5/16 x 6 1/16 x 5 1/4 in.); without base: 35 x 13.8 x 10.5 cm (13 3/4 x 5 7/16 x 4 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Northern India, Uttar Pradesh
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This bronze Buddha is exceptional, because it carries an inscription on its base that dates its manufacture to the year 591. According to the inscription, the sculpture was dedicated by a nun who was from a village in Nepal, but she probably commissioned it at a workshop in northern India.
The Buddha's robe on this image has been left plain, without pleat lines to obscure the beauty of the contours of the body. Only the rippling scalloped clusters of the garment’s hem lend some sense of energy and subtle ornament to the composition.