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A jade disk that has been cut into a thin ring. It is dark brown in color with some pale yellow along the center-left. It has been engraved with swirling lines that make a pattern throughout the piece.

A jade disk that has been cut into a thin ring. It is dark brown in color with some pale yellow along the center-left. It is shown flat on a grey background. It has been engraved with swirling lines that make a pattern throughout the piece. The pattern has fine, circle and lines details.

Gallery Text

In the Zhou dynasty the number of jades in burial sites increased significantly, as multiple plaques and beads were sewn or strung together and draped over the face and body of the deceased. Jades in the forms of figures and animals became increasingly realistic, and surface patterns became more complex and highly decorative.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.50.539
Title
Ornate Jade Ring-Disk
Classification
Ritual Implements
Work Type
disk
Date
4th-3rd century BCE
Places
Creation Place: East Asia, China
Period
Zhou dynasty, Warring States period, 475-221 BCE
Culture
Chinese
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/204854

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1740, Early Chinese Art, Arts of Ancient China from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Tortoise-shell colored nephrite with areas of incipient calcification
Dimensions
Diam. 14.2 x Thickness 0.3 cm (5 9/16 x 1/8 in.)
Weight 52 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. 401 by Max Loehr:

401 Ornate Ring-Disk
Jade of tortoise-shell color, with areas of incipient calcification. The narrow surface of this ring-disk is decorated with a deeply carved and finely incised pattern, the center of which is occupied by a kind of t’ao-t’ieh mask. Along the outer edge, to either side of the bands issuing from the mask, are two animal heads facing in a clockwise direction. Strongly modeled and overlapping bands and spirals, symmetrically arranged on either side of the mask, fill the rest of the disk. The reverse side is plain. Beveled inner and outer edges. The disk is broken in two places and repaired with two small metal pins fitted into holes drilled into the jade on either side of the breaks. Later Eastern Chou.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.50.539
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Dorothy W. Gillerman, ed., Grenville L. Winthrop: Retrospective for a Collector, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1969), no. 031, pp. 26-27
  • 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. 401, pp. 272-273
  • Jenny So, Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2019), pp. 224-25, cat. 28A

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