Head of a Buddha

This head stood atop a massive seated or standing figure of the Buddha Shakyamuni. Its facial features and the rim around its hairline associate it with sculptures made in and around the city of Lopburi, in central Thailand. Lopburi was a provincial capital for the Cambodian rulers who occupied parts of Thailand for three hundred years. Stone sculpture would gradually fall out of favor in Thailand after the departure of the Khmer rulers in the thirteenth century, giving way to metal, lacquer, and stucco.