Anyone who has visited the Faculty Room in Low Library over many decades may recall seeing a cheerful statue of a child made of gilded bronze. Sometimes a work of art on view in the same location can lead to its eventual “invisibility,” so when an opportunity was offered to showcase this sculpture from Art Properties in a new light, we knew it was the perfect time for this joyful work of art to be seen by many more people.

This Chinese sculpture is now on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the current exhibition Recasting the Past: The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100-1900. Our partners in The Met’s curatorial and conservation departments have helped give our sculpture new life. From all the selfies being taken beside him, we get the sense that he welcomes all this renewed attention.

According to curator Pengliang Lu, the sculpture represents the Buddhist pilgrim Sudhana (Shancai Tongzi), who traveled to study with priests and bodhisattvas in his quest for enlightenment. He is usually shown venerating Guanyin, the Chinese bodhisattva of compassion. The sculpture has an inscription that identifies it as having been cast in the imperial workshop for the Ming dynasty court in the year 1641, three years before the fall of the dynasty. Scholars have identified three other statues with the same inscription, suggesting the Columbia sculpture was once part of a larger altar group.

The sculpture was donated to Columbia University by Arthur M. Sackler in 1967. At that time, Columbia considered adding a museum, and Sackler and his first wife Else began to acquire thousands of works of art that they donated to the collection. After Columbia decided not to move forward with the museum, the Sacklers stopped donating works of art by 1972. At the request of the Sacklers, Columbia eventually returned many of these objects, which were subsequently then donated to other institutions, such as the Smithsonian Institution and Harvard University Museums. Today, the Arthur M. Sackler Collections in Art Properties number around 2500 objects from the Near East and East Asia and include this beautiful sculpture, now on view at The Met through the run of the exhibition.