Throne for a Buddha image

Such an elaborate throne and Buddha image would have been an important fixture of a nineteenth-century Buddhist temple in Myanmar, and similar ones can still be seen in temples today.

The significance of the crowned and bejeweled Buddha image varied in different places and periods. In the region of Thailand and Myanmar, one story explained that the Buddha manifested himself enthroned, wearing a magnificent crown and royal finery, in response to an arrogant king named Jambupati who once attempted to impress the Buddha with his grandeur. The lesson was that the grandeur of buddhahood vastly outshines that of earthly kingship.

This throne shrine and image were purchased in the 1960s by the wealthy art collector (and celebrity) Doris Duke, who assembled a huge group of Southeast Asian artworks with the intention of displaying them for the benefit of the public in a Southeast Asian cultural park. Her plans were never realized in the way she hoped, and eventually this throne and the rest of the collection ended up at Duke’s estate in New Jersey, where visitors could sometimes see them. Some years after her death, many of the art objects were given to the Asian Art Museum and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, and smaller numbers of objects to other museums around the country.

The original crown of this Buddha image disappeared long ago. The one the image now wears was made using traditional techniques and in the traditional style in 2002 by U Win Maung, an expert artisan in Mandalay, Myanmar. It was commissioned and then donated to the museum in memory of M. R. Vadhanathorn Chirapravati. The rest of the Buddha image’s royal decorations appear to be original.