Ornate Jade Disk | Harvard Art Museums

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1943.50.559
Title: Ornate Jade Disk
Classification: Ritual Implements
Work Type: disk
Date: 206 BCE - 9 CE
Places: Creation Place: East Asia, China
Period: Han dynasty, Western Han period, 206 BCE-9 CE
Culture: Chinese
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/204537

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Barely translucent, brownish green and russet stone

Dimensions

0.7 x 23.6 cm (1/4 x 9 5/16 in.)
unspecified: 719 g

Inscriptions and Marks

inscription: incised along edge: 十四之五 (fifth of fourteen)

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. 534 by Max Loehr:

534 Ornate Disk
Barely translucent, brownish green and russet stone polished to a glassy finish. This disk, similar to No. 530, is decorated with the “bucranium” scroll in the outer zone, a pattern of hexagonal elevations in the inner zone, and a rope-circle between them. While on No. 530 the heads and attached bands are outlined by neatly ground, evenly deep curvilinear grooves, here they are executed by thinly incised lines and harsh, abruptly applied straight grooves which are not integrated with the curvilinear configurations. The grooves of the grid pattern on the inner zone cut across the rope-circle, disfiguring it. Along the edge of the rim runs an inscription: wo pai(?) ssu shih, “five hundred(?) forty”; see the Introduction, section on inscriptions. Late Western or Early Eastern Han(?).

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

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

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.50.559

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, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1975), cat. no. 534, p. 371

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

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