Garment Hook | Harvard Art Museums

Gallery Text

During the Warring States and Han periods, jades functioned not only as ritual and burial items, but also as objects of personal adornment for the living. Other luxury materials, such as gold, bronze, and glass began to be incorporated with jades with greater frequency.

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1943.50.462
Title: Garment Hook
Classification: Ritual Implements
Work Type: ornament
Date: 3rd-2nd century BCE
Places: Creation Place: East Asia, China
Period: Warring States period (475-221 BCE) to Western Han period (206 BCE-9 CE)
Culture: Chinese
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/199592

Location

Location: Level 1, Room 1740, Early Chinese Art, Arts of Ancient China from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age

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Physical Descriptions

Medium: Pale green and cream-colored nephrite, partly calcified, but still glossy
Dimensions: L. 14.4 x D. 3.4 x W. 1.8 cm (5 11/16 x 1 5/16 x 11/16 in.)
Weight 92 g

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History: Grenville L. Winthrop, New York (by 1943), bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Published Text

Catalogue: Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Authors: Max Loehr and Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber
Publisher: Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1975)

Catalogue entry no. 469 by Max Loehr:

469 Belt Hook
Pale green and cream-colored jade, partly calcified, but still glossy. Tapering off in width toward the hook, the body, which is squarish in section, is distinguished by an unusual and exquisitely designed décor composed of a set of three transverse bars with tectiform elevations formed by concave slopes meeting at a sharp crest. The hook has the shape of a simplified animal head with marginal ridges on top. As in the preceding two specimens, the button is rectangular and flush with the supporting stud and lateral faces. The surfaces are plain. The longitudinal edges between the bars are chamfered. At the end of the shaft is a short, recurved, blunt-tipped appendage. Late Eastern Chou.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.50.462

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), no. 032, pp. 26-27
Max Loehr and Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber, Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, Fogg Art Museum, 1975)., cat. no. 469, p. 320

Exhibition History

Re-View: S228-230 Arts of Asia, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/31/2008 - 06/01/2013
32Q: 1740 Early China I, Harvard Art Museums, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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1943.50.462: Garment Hook