Cleveland Museum of Art

Seated Buddha

Date

1000s

Medium

painted wood

Culture

Western Himalayas, possibly Ladakh or Lahul

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Eleventh-century western Tibet experienced a period of fervent reconstruction of Buddhist monasteries following the persecution of Buddhism during the 9th and 10th centuries. Art from Kashmir was avidly collected and copied as part of those reconstruction efforts. Kashmiri stylistic traits, such as the pinched waist and abdominal musculature seen in this rare wooden image, are from that critical time. The pioneering Italian Tibetologists Giusseppe Tucci and Egenio Ghersi discovered this sculpture during an expedition to Tibet from 1933 to 1935

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