Cleveland Museum of Art

Standing Buddha

Date

591

Medium

bronze

Culture

Northern India, Uttar Pradesh

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

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. Around the time when this sculpture was made, portable bronzes began to replace relics as the principal sacred commodity circulating in the Buddhist world.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.