Very Heavy Wedge-Shaped Jade Chisel

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1943.50.108
Title: Very Heavy Wedge-Shaped Jade Chisel
Classification: Ritual Implements
Work Type: chisel
Date: 770 BCE - 221 BCE (?)
Places: Creation Place: East Asia, China
Period: Zhou dynasty, Eastern Zhou period, 770-256 BCE
Culture: Chinese
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/204974

Physical Descriptions

Medium: Deep brown and dark greenish, fine-grained stone with incipient calcification
Dimensions: 29.5 x 10.2 x 3.3 cm (11 5/8 x 4 x 1 5/16 in.)
unspecified: 2256 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. 339 by Max Loehr:

339 Very Heavy Wedge-shaped Chisel
This enormously heavy tool is made of a deep brown and dark greenish, fine-grained stone, showing signs of incipient calcification on one face. The faces wide moderately toward the double-beveled cutting edge; in the butt slants; the profile is wedge-shaped. The perforation appears to be perfectly cylindrical, and its wall is ground smooth and shiny. On both faces are longitudinal depressions left by the saws used to cut the huge slab from which this tool was made. Easter Chou(?).

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

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

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.50.108

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. 339, pp. 226-227

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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