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The Bodhisattva Maitreya
The Bodhisattva Maitreya

The Bodhisattva Maitreya

CulturePakstani or Indian
Date8th century C.E.
MediumBrass with silver inlay and traces of paint
DimensionsOverall: 9 7/8 × 5 3/4 × 3 3/4 inches (25.08 × 14.61 × 9.53 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number66-22
On View
On view
Gallery Location
  • 228
Collections
Exhibition History

Indian Buddhist Sculpture in American Collections, Speed Museum, Louisville, KY, February 27-March 31, 1968, no. 54 as Seated Maitreya (?).

Buddha of the Future:  An Early Maitreya from Thailand, The Asia Society Galleries, New York, April 13-July 31, 1994; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, September 3-November 27, 1994, no. 44 as Maitreya.

Collecting Paradise:  Buddhist Art of Kashmir and its Legacies, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Chicago, January 13-April 19, 2015; Rubin Museum of Art, New York, May 22-October 19, 2015, no. 1.33 as Maitreya Bodhisattva.

Gallery Label
Seated upon a lion throne, the Buddha-to-be, Bodhisattva Maitreya, resides in Tusita, a heavenly paradise, waiting for his earthly birth. He is rendered in the artistic style developed in Kashmir, which emphasizes the figure’s wide forehead, long eyes and narrow waist. The triangular, stacked ornaments in his crown are based upon the shape of Buddhist stupas in Kashmir. Sculptures from Kashmir are often cast in brass and frequently feature inlaid silver or copper to highlight features.
Provenance

With J. J. Klejman Gallery, New York, by 1966;

Purchased from J. J. Klejman Gallery by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1966.
Published References

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, “Checklist of Acquisitions 1962-1966,” The Nelson Gallery & Atkins Bulletin, 4, no. 8 (1967): 47.  

J. B. Speed Art Museum, Indian Buddhist Sculpture in American Collections, exh. cat. (Louisville: J. B. Speed Art Museum, 1968), unpaginated.

Pratapaditya Pal, Bronzes of Kashmir (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1975), 126-27, (repro.).

Karl Khandalavala, “The Chronology of the Arts of Nepal and Kashmir,” Lalit Kala 19 (1979): 41.

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), 379, (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), 262, fig. 14, (repro.).

Nandana Chutiwongs and Denise Patry Leidy, Buddha of the Future:  an Early Maitreya from Thailand, exh. cat. (New York: The Asia Society Galleries, 1994), 78, 109, (repro.).

Rob Linrothe, Collecting Paradise: Buddhist Art of Kashmir and its Legacies, exh. cat., (New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2014), 63, fig. 1.33, (repro.).

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Kimberly Masteller, Masterworks from India and Southeast Asia: the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kanas City, Missouri: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in association with University of Washington Press, 2016), 32-33, (repro.).


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