Head of a Buddha

CultureIndonesian

Dateca. 825 C.E.

MediumVolcanic stone

DimensionsOverall: 12 1/4 × 8 1/2 inches (31.12 × 21.59 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number55-104

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

South and Southeast Asian Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Art of India and Southeast Asia: An Exhibition at the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, May 17-June 14, 1964, no. 68 as Head of Buddha.

Image of the Buddha: A Photographic Exhibition by Takeji Iwamiya, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri, August 15-September 7, 1979, hors cat.

Gallery Label

Several distinguishing features suggest that this head of a Buddha sculpture originated from Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist monument. The recognizable features include its full face, overall shape and its material (volcanic stone). Constructed in the early 9th century, this massive temple covers an entire hill, wrapping it with terraces filled with relief sculpture. Its summit is crowned with Buddha sculptures and relic mounds (stupas). This head likely came from one of the hundreds of Buddha sculptures that inhabited the niches and stupas atop the monument.

Provenance

With Heeramaneck Galleries, New York, by 1955;

Purchased from Heeramaneck Galleries by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1955.

Published References

“Recent Accessions,” in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts Gallery News 24, no. 2 (November 1956), (repro.).

Krannert Art Musuem, Art of India and Southeast Asia: An Exhibition at the Krannert Art Museum, exh. cat. (Champaign: College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois, 1964), 50, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 2, Art of the Orient, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 150, (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 391, (repro.).

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 281, fig. 4, (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.