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拍品专文
This monumental image of Buddha, larger than life-sized, is a paragon of Southeast Asian metal-casting and an exemplary example of the rare and elegant U-Thong corpus of Thai Buddhist images. The U-Thong Style, a term used to identify bronzes of three successive chronological groups (identified by the scholar, A.B. Griswold as Styles A, B and C) between the late twelfth and fifteenth centuries, exhibits a blend of Mon, Khmer and other Southeast Asian influences that were maintained from prior workshops in the region. The latest U-Thong group, Style C – to which this bronze can be assigned – was fully developed after the founding of the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1351 and is the most similar of the three styles to contemporaneous mainstream Ayutthaya images of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, yet still retains features from Mon and Khmer influences. Most U-Thong-style images were relatively small in scale, particularly those in the earlier styles, and the present bronze is an uncommonly impressive example for its grandiose scale and refinement of casting.
The designation of U-Thong is in itself somewhat obscure; although a Mon Dvaravati city-state of that name existed at the height of the Dvaravati period (from roughly the seventh to eleventh century), archaeological evidence suggests it was abandoned by the eleventh century. Instead, the appellation seems to have been in reference to King Ramathibodi, who founded the Ayutthaya kingdom in 1351 and who was also known as Prince U-Thong. Images of the Buddha designated as being in the U-Thong style thus refer to bronzes carried out in a distinct style developed prior to the founding of Ayutthaya, but which continued and was synthesized with the mainstream Ayutthaya Buddhist art that flourished after its rise to power. Its earliest stylistic impulses were a sophisticated amalgamation of the other regional styles of the time, including the Khmericized Lopburi kingdom and the Khmer Empire itself to the east, the Mon Haripunjaya kingdom to the north, and the kingdoms of Burma to the west.
The sculptures of the U-Thong style are most strikingly distinguished from other contemporaneous styles in the features of the face and details of the head and hair. The cranial protuberance on the top of the head, referred to as the ushnisha, is, in U-Thong Styles B and C, topped with a tall, flaming jewel. The hair is arranged in small, tight curls, in contrast to the larger “snailshell” curls found in the contemporaneous sculpture of Sukhothai. Additionally, the hair is separated from the forehead by a thin, plain band, which in the present sculpture culminates in a sharp widow’s peak – U-Thong Styles A and B typically run straight across the top of the forehead. The face, with its heavy-lidded, downcast eyes, broad nose, and wide mouth with full lips, demonstrates the influence of earlier Khmer styles, including the Bayon of the thirteenth century, although in Style C these somewhat severe features are softened. The shape of the face, which in Styles A and B are almost rectangular, is in Style C closer to the more oval-shaped faces of contemporary Ayutthaya sculpture.
Examples of the U-Thong Style in Western collections are remarkably rare; the Walters Art Museum received a large bequest of Thai sculpture in 1992, including two much smaller works (acc. nos. 54.2792 and 54.2801) that can be considered within the earlier U-Thong styles, but which have improbably been dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. Most known monumental examples continue to reside in the national collections of Thailand; compare the present work, for example, to a smaller though stylistically similar example in the Chainatmuni National Museum, illustrated by T. Bowie in The Sculpture of Thailand (New York, 1972, p. 109, cat. no. 63).
The designation of U-Thong is in itself somewhat obscure; although a Mon Dvaravati city-state of that name existed at the height of the Dvaravati period (from roughly the seventh to eleventh century), archaeological evidence suggests it was abandoned by the eleventh century. Instead, the appellation seems to have been in reference to King Ramathibodi, who founded the Ayutthaya kingdom in 1351 and who was also known as Prince U-Thong. Images of the Buddha designated as being in the U-Thong style thus refer to bronzes carried out in a distinct style developed prior to the founding of Ayutthaya, but which continued and was synthesized with the mainstream Ayutthaya Buddhist art that flourished after its rise to power. Its earliest stylistic impulses were a sophisticated amalgamation of the other regional styles of the time, including the Khmericized Lopburi kingdom and the Khmer Empire itself to the east, the Mon Haripunjaya kingdom to the north, and the kingdoms of Burma to the west.
The sculptures of the U-Thong style are most strikingly distinguished from other contemporaneous styles in the features of the face and details of the head and hair. The cranial protuberance on the top of the head, referred to as the ushnisha, is, in U-Thong Styles B and C, topped with a tall, flaming jewel. The hair is arranged in small, tight curls, in contrast to the larger “snailshell” curls found in the contemporaneous sculpture of Sukhothai. Additionally, the hair is separated from the forehead by a thin, plain band, which in the present sculpture culminates in a sharp widow’s peak – U-Thong Styles A and B typically run straight across the top of the forehead. The face, with its heavy-lidded, downcast eyes, broad nose, and wide mouth with full lips, demonstrates the influence of earlier Khmer styles, including the Bayon of the thirteenth century, although in Style C these somewhat severe features are softened. The shape of the face, which in Styles A and B are almost rectangular, is in Style C closer to the more oval-shaped faces of contemporary Ayutthaya sculpture.
Examples of the U-Thong Style in Western collections are remarkably rare; the Walters Art Museum received a large bequest of Thai sculpture in 1992, including two much smaller works (acc. nos. 54.2792 and 54.2801) that can be considered within the earlier U-Thong styles, but which have improbably been dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. Most known monumental examples continue to reside in the national collections of Thailand; compare the present work, for example, to a smaller though stylistically similar example in the Chainatmuni National Museum, illustrated by T. Bowie in The Sculpture of Thailand (New York, 1972, p. 109, cat. no. 63).