Seated Buddha

This meditative Buddha has seen the ravages of time, including losses, breaks, and erosion of the surface pigment. Originally the hair was painted blue, the flesh was gilded, and the robe was lacquered red, with gold filling in the incised lines that pattern the textile.

The date assigned to this statue has been revised several times during the twentieth century. When acquired in 1916, it was dated to the twelfth century or earlier. In 1962, radiocarbon testing was conducted, and the ivory was dated to between 1550 and 1750. The curator assigned a date of circa 1750 for the carving.
 
Now similar stone and bronze figures from the fifteenth century are well known, and recently revised scientific standards for calibrating the results of radiocarbon tests suggest a date of between 1440 and 1660 for the tusk itself. A few scholars still disagree about the date of this Buddha. A similar ivory in a London museum has been estimated to date to between 1200 and 1350 based on a slight Tibetan cast to the figure, but the arguments for such an early date are not persuasive. The Tibetan features of the Freer's Buddha are so fully assimilated that a date of circa 1450-1550 seems likely, and scientific evidence supports this conclusion.