1943.50.538: Jade Collared Disk
Ritual ImplementsThe dark green and white jade disk has a circle cut out in the middle and lays flat on a dark grey background. The piece has irregular coloration and some faint spots throughout. There are many carved rings on the piece. The center has a small raised lip around it.
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
- 1943.50.538
- Title
- Jade Collared Disk
- Classification
- Ritual Implements
- Work Type
- disk
- Date
- 12th-11th century BCE
- Places
- Creation Place: East Asia, China
- Period
- Shang dynasty, c. 1600-c. 1050 BCE
- Culture
- Chinese
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/204575
Location
- Location
-
Level 1, Room 1740, Early Chinese Art, Arts of Ancient China from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Soft green nephrite with calcified areas which have turned white and opaque
- Dimensions
-
Diam. 18.2 x Thickness of Collar 0.8 x Thickness 0.3 cm (7 3/16 x 5/16 x 1/8 in.)
Weight 207 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. 102 by Max Loehr:
102 Collared Disk
Large disk with a low collar around the inner edge. The jade is of a soft green hue, with calcified areas which have turned white and opaque. On both sides of the disk are incised, circular grooves, grouped in four concentric bands and separated by slight furrows. Most uncommon is the following phenomenon: visible on the upper side of the disk, within the substance of the jade itself, is a lei-wen pattern, not originally part of the décor, which in all likelihood is the result of a chemical reaction with a textile in which the disk was wrapped. 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
- 1943.50.538
- 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. 102, p. 99
- Jenny So, Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2019), pp. 116-118, cat. 10A
Exhibition History
- 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