A rare gilt bronze figure of Buddha Korea, Unified Silla Dynasty, 8th / 9th Century

of superb modeling, the figure cast with a exaggerated backward lean and the hips thrust slightly forward, dressed in long robes knotted below the torso and draped in rhythmic U-shaped folds to expose the chest, and in symmetrical whorls across the thighs, leaving the hands emerging in abhaya and varada mudra open at slight angles, the face with delicate features flanked by ears tapering to sharp points below the flattened curved hairline and high domed usnisha, standing upon a lotus pedestal with a narrow waist between upright and pendent lappets on an octagonal foliate base pierced with cloud motifs (later pierced mandorla)

Compare a similar gilt bronze standing Buddha of slightly larger size in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, exhibited at the Japan Society, New York, 'Transmitting the Forms of Divinity. Early Buddhist Art from Korea & Japan', 2003, and illustrated in the Catalogue, no.44, where a tentative identification of the figure as Buddha Sakyamuni is proposed; with identical hand gestures, similar treatment of the robes and the distinctive backward lean of the upper torso.

Compare also a Buddha with similar lotus base and similar proportions of the face and hands, illustrated by Matsubara Saburo, Korean Gilt-Bronze Buddhist Sculpture, Tokyo, 1985, pl.110 a, b, & c.