Large Bronze Buddha Môn Dvaravati

• Large bronze Buddha in the Môn Dvaravati style, both hands in Jnama mudra, 19th century or earlier.
• Good condition with only one small crack on the sanghati.
• H 102 cm x W 37 cm x D 20 cm
• Height on base 120 cm
• The bronze is adjacent to the base and perfectly stable.
• Provenance: Estate of Claude de Marteau

The Dvāravatī style developed within the Mon kingdom of Dvāravatī, which flourished in the central region of present-day Thailand between the 6th and 11th centuries. The main identified centers of this culture include U Thong, Nakhon Pathom, Phong Tuk, Si Thep, Khu Bua and Si Mahosot, now recognized as major foci of early Buddhism in Southeast Asia.

Dvāravatī art is directly inspired by the Gupta and post-Gupta traditions of India, particularly in the treatment of volumes, the modeling of bodies and the structuring of faces. This filiation translates into a search for formal balance and expressive sobriety, characteristic of the region’s first monumental Buddhist representations.

Sculptures attributed to this tradition feature specific physical traits generally associated with the Mon people: broad faces, flared noses, full lips and often joined superciliary arches, giving the figures a presence that is both massive and interiorized. These stylistic features enable a coherent attribution to the Dvāravatī corpus and underline the regional anchorage of these works in the early history of Buddhism.