Head of a Male Deity Sandstone Khmer, Angkor Period, Baphuon style

A head of a male diety with a youthful face, the eyes open and alert but looking down framed by arched eyebrows meeting above the nose, the outlined lips, with the lower lip fuller than the upper lip, forming a gentle smile. He wears a circular, jewelled diadem which culminates at the back in a projection of stone possibly for attachment to a stele.  Behind the diadem is a three tiered conical headdress.

Arthur Michael Collection, 1942.

Ritchie, I., p. 211, cat. no. 208.

Welty, P.; The Human Expression, N.Y., 1976, p. 249 (ill.).

Baphuon sculpture is characterised by elegant and gentle forms. The outlining of the eyes and the arched eyebrows, full lips and dimpled chin are all elements associated with the 11th century style. Compare the modelling of the face to a Baphuon period male divinity published in Ibbitson Jessup, H. and Zephir, T. (ed.); Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia, Millenium of Glory, Thames and Hudson, 1997, p. 254, fig. 65.