A RARE AND LARGE GILT BRONZE FIGURE OF AN ENTHRONED MAITREYA, CENTRAL JAVANESE PERIODExpert’s note: The fuller, fleshier depiction of Buddha, with a lack of jeweled adornment, places the style of this statue amongst examples dating from the 9th century. The throne and figure are cast from different metal alloys, the throne having a higher copper content and the figure having a higher iron content, resulting in a different appearance of the two, as the metals have developed differently over the centuries.Indonesia, Java, 8th-9th century. Seated in bhadrasana on a stepped rectangular throne, his feet placed on a circular lotus dais, the hands held in dharmachakra mudra, dressed in a monastic robe, and backed by an ornately scrolled foliate mandorla.Provenance: Christie’s Paris, 10 December 2014, lot 349. Michael Phillips, acquired from the above. A copy of the original invoice from Christie’s, dated 16 January 2015, addressed to Michael Phillips, confirming the dating above, and stating a purchase price of EUR 6,500 or approx.EUR 7,500 (adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), apanies this lot. Michael Phillips (born 1943) is an Academy Award-winning film producer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, his parents were Lawrence and Shirley Phillips, noted New York dealers in Asian fine arts, selling to the Met, the LACMA, the Chicago Art Institute, and the British Museum among others. Michael Phillips is a collector of Asian art himself, particularly Indian, Southeast Asian, and Himalayan sculpture. His most important films include The Sting (winning the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1973), Taxi Driver (winning the Palme d’Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival), and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.Condition: Good condition,mensurate with age. Extensive wear, minor nicks, scratches, pitting, losses to gilt, signs of weathering and erosion, corrosion. Still presenting remarkably well, especially given the high age of this sculpture.Weight: 6,585 gDimensions: Height 28.5 cmThis extraordinary gilt-bronze statue represents Maitreya, the Buddha of the future. It is believed that Maitreya wille to save humanity during the final days. The iconography of this particular statue has many similarities with Western prototypes, demonstrating how Buddhist imagery spread to Java along the Silk Road from places as far away as Tibet and Sri Lanka. Such statues were often part of an important and much larger altar set forming a ritual mandala, flanked by supportive bodhisattvas and surrounded by lesser deities.Literatureparison:Compare a closely related bronze figure in the Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden, inventory number 1403-2845.pare a closely related bronze figure in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number .Compare also a stone image of Buddha located in situ at Candi Mendut, illustrated in Peter Sharrock and Emma Bunker, Seeds of Vajrabodhi: