1943.50.404: Jade Curved Fish with Jagged Dorsal Fin
Ritual ImplementsA jade sculpture of a curved fish that lies flat on a grey background. The fish faces the left and its tail is curved downward on the right. The fish’s body is long and wide with spiked fins along the top and flat fins along the bottom. There are carved lines to show its fins, eye, and lines on the body. There is a hole through the face. The fish is light orange/yellow in color with some light pink spots.
Gallery Text
The Shang refined Neolithic jade-making practices, fashioning ritual blades and implements of even greater sophistication than those of their predecessors, incorporating jade blades into turquoise-inlaid bronze hafts, and expanding their jade repertoire into representational shapes of humans and animals.
Identification and Creation
- Object Number
- 1943.50.404
- Title
- Jade Curved Fish with Jagged Dorsal Fin
- Classification
- Ritual Implements
- Work Type
- pendant
- Date
- 16th-8th century BCE
- Places
- Creation Place: East Asia, China
- Period
- Shang dynasty (c. 1600-c. 1050 BCE) to Western Zhou period (c. 1050-771 BCE)
- Culture
- Chinese
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/202770
Location
- Location
-
Level 1, Room 1740, Early Chinese Art, Arts of Ancient China from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Light olive-green and cream-colored translucent nephrite, showing signs of incipient calicification; traces of cinnabar on the right side
- Dimensions
-
W. 2.3 x L. 7.5 x Thickness 0.4 cm (7/8 x 2 15/16 x 3/16 in.)
Weight 12 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. 137 by Max Loehr:
137 Curved Fish with Jagged Dorsal Fin
Light olive-green and cream-colored translucent jade, showing signs of incipient calcification; traces of cinnabar on the right side. Uncommon features of this piece, in addition to the sawteeth of the dorsal fin, are the fluted tail fin and a row of large, overlapping scales which repeat the curve of the gill. The carving is identical on both sides. Conical perforation at the mouth. Shang or Western Chou(?).
Acquisition and Rights
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
- Accession Year
- 1943
- Object Number
- 1943.50.404
- 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
- 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. 137, p. 119
Exhibition History
- 32Q: 1740 Early China I, Harvard Art Museums, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050
Verification Level
This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or 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