明 鐵加彩觀世音菩薩坐像

Armand Trampitsch (1890-1975) 收藏

Galerie Jacques Barrère,，巴黎，1985年

《Exposition》，Galerie Jacques Barrère， 巴黎，1985年

Extant examples of Ming-dynasty cast-iron figures in their entirety are relatively rare, particularly those of the scale of the present work. Cast in several sections and joined at the seams, such figures would have required an inordinate amount of material at a time when metals such as iron and bronze were in very short supply. Compare the present work with a cast-iron figure of Bodhidharma (Ch. Damo) of similar size in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 1975.413), illustrated on the museum's website. See, also, a cast-iron head of a bodhisattva with similar treatment of the face and crown, also in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 24.13.58), illustrated by Alan Priest in Chinese Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1944, p. 49, cat. no. 72, pl. 123.