1943.50.54: Heavy Jade Dagger-Axe with Serrate Tang
Ritual ImplementsThe blade has a spine that extends down the middle and to the tip where the two sides curve inward to a point. Two broad facets on either side of the spine are beveled thinner along the edge almost to the tip. On the end opposite the point, the tang is slightly narrower than the blade, and at one fourth the length, much shorter, and its end has eight small serrations that stick outward from its edge. Several small circular holes cave been cut where a handle was once attached to the tang, and some terra cotta colored residue remains there.
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
- 1943.50.54
- Title
- Heavy Jade Dagger-Axe with Serrate Tang
- Classification
- Ritual Implements
- Work Type
- dagger-axe
- Date
- 12th-10th 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/205297
Location
- Location
-
Level 1, Room 1740, Early Chinese Art, Arts of Ancient China from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Gray-green nephrite with lighter markings; some reddish earth and cinnabar remain on the left side
- Dimensions
-
L. 34.2 x W. 8 x Thickness 0.9 cm (13 7/16 x 3 1/8 x 3/8 in.)
Weight 370 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. 41 by Max Loehr:
41 Heavy Dagger-Axe with Serrate Tang
Gray-green jade with lighter markings; some reddish earth and cinnabar remain on the left side. Well proportioned, smooth blade of exemplary workmanship. The crested blade is beveled along the upper and lower edges; the bevels end in a delicately ground, outward-curving ledge. The tip of the blade is not beveled but has sloping faces. The flattened tang is decorated with four pairs of teeth which project from the butt. A large conical perforation in the blade, drilled from the right side; two curiously placed similar perforations in the butt, one biconical and the other drilled from the left side. Shang or early Western Chou.
Acquisition and Rights
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
- Accession Year
- 1943
- Object Number
- 1943.50.54
- 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. 41, p. 60
- Jenny So, Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2019), pp. 122, 124, fig. 1
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