1943.50.350: Jade Arc-Shaped Pendant
Ritual ImplementsIdentification and Creation
- Object Number
- 1943.50.350
- Title
- Jade Arc-Shaped Pendant
- Classification
- Ritual Implements
- Work Type
- pendant
- Date
- possibly 11th cent. BCE - 771 BCE
- Places
- Creation Place: East Asia, China
- Period
- Zhou dynasty, Western Zhou period, c. 1050-771 BCE
- Culture
- Chinese
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/204758
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Originally dark green, but now largely discolored and opaque nephrite
- Dimensions
-
chord 10 x w. 2 x th. 0.4 cm (3 15/16 x 13/16 x 3/16 in.)
25 g
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. 304 by Max Loehr:
304 Arch-shaped Pendant
Semicircular disk segment of jade, originally dark green, but now largely discolored and opaque. The slight indentations in the contour of one end of the segment defining the head, horns, and lower jaw of the dragon compare with Nos. 299 and 300. Apparently some of the engraved features of this head—the mouth if nothing more—as well as the front line of the foreleg and the paw are of late Shang or early Western Chou date. The rest of the engraved lines, however, are a later addition; these lines depict the dragons’ horns, scaly body, hindlegs, and curled-up tail. The area at the opposite end of the segment, which in pieces of this type was reserved for the tail or left as a blank area extending beyond the tail, is here made to resemble a second dragon head, which is deprived of a body. The rawness of these engraved lines might not by itself serve as a criterion sufficient for rejecting them as original, for such harshness is not entirely unknown in authentic pieces of this period. More compelling is the fact that the Shang or Western Chou artists conceived of such tiger segments as two-dimensional projections of dragons with the animal organically filling, and thus congruent to, the outline of the segment. In the present piece, by contrast, the segment is conceived of more as a flat tablet upon which the dragon is merely “written.” The result is that the outline of the dragon’s body is not congruent with the outline of the piece; the line of his back, for instance, is incised an eighth of an inch from the edge The sense of organic unity is thereby lost, and various awkward filling devices, such as the concentric triangles between the base of the tail and its tip, are required to fill the resulting vacant areas. Several other meaningless or anachronistic patterns are further indications of tampering. The originally fine Shang or Early Western Chou piece was disfigured by a later hand, although not necessarily a recent one.
Acquisition and Rights
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
- Accession Year
- 1943
- Object Number
- 1943.50.350
- Division
- Asian and Mediterranean Art
- Contact
- am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
- Permissions
-
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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. 304, p. 210
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