A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c13.s6.74

c13.s6.74

Certain small miscellaneous bronze images from Ceylon, of which the exact find-spots are not recorded, are of sufficient interest to deserve special notice. A little figure, presumably that of the Mahāyānist deity (if the expression be allowed) named Avalokitesvara or Padmapāni, only 3⅝ inches in height, belonging to Dr. Coomaraswamy, and ascribed by him to the sixth or seventh century, is regarded by the owner, and not without reason, as the best of all the Ceylonese images. He praises the 'perfection and abstraction of the style', claiming that 'the divine ideal is fully realized both in expression and in physical form'. The praise seems to be rather overstrained. By the kindness of Dr. Coomaraswamy I am permitted to reproduce his photograph (Fig. 195), already published by the owner in the *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society* and the *Burlington Magazine*, and also by Mr. Havell under the name of Maitreya.