A rare gilt-bronze standing figure of Udayana Buddha, Qing dynasty, 18th century | 清十八世紀 銅鎏金優塡王佛立像

The sculpture pays homage to an ancient Indian tradition of depicting the Buddha in a style known in China from the late fourth or early fifth century as Udayana, where the Buddha’s outer garment covers both shoulders and falls in stylised undulations, and the hair is drawn tight to the head. The style is derived from the Buddhist sculpture of ancient Gandhara and early Central Asian cultures, where Buddha images reflected classical Graeco-Roman influence in hairstyle and flowing robes. Udayana is the ancient name of a region thought to be present-day Swat Valley, Pakistan. Testimony to the migration of this style from India is seen in the important Northern Wei dynasty (386-534) gilt bronze figure in the Metropolitan Museum of Art dated 486 and identified by inscription as Maitreya, where the Buddha’s hands are held in abhaya and varada mudra like the present Qing period sculpture, with the robe falling from the shoulders in stylised undulations, see Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese and Daoist Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, pp. 57-59, cat. no. 4. The traditions surrounding sculpture such as this massive fifth century bronze were clearly known to patrons and artists of the Qing period, and although their interpretation is itself stylised, the intent in depicting this standing Buddha with undulating robes and the same hand gestures as fifth century works is to pay homage to this earlier period of Buddhist fervour, the icons with which it was associated and their Indian origins. The Udayana Buddha was popular in the Qianlong period as was other archaistic sculpture that paid homage to the eastern Indian Pala style and that copied important Kashmir bronzes in the Palace collections.