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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.50.632
Title
Jade Cup with Bird Handles
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
vessel
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/204874

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Mottled light green nephrite
Dimensions
13.5 x 16 x 8.5 cm (5 5/16 x 6 5/16 x 3 3/8 in.)
638 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. 523 by Max Loehr:

523 Cup with Bird Handles
Mottled light green, cream, and light brown jade of uneven degrees of translucency, with a glossy polish. The approximately cylindrical lower portion of the cup is divided from the flaring upper portion to a heavy torus. The bird figures, with arbitrarily simplified, involute, band-like bodies in sharp-cornered openwork, face in opposite directions. Their crested heads rise above the rim; their tails issue from the wall below the torus. Except for an incised median line on the birds’ bodies and tails, the surfaces are plain. Late Eastern Chou or Western Han(?).

Salmony notes that the birds “seem to have a pearl in their beaks.” Actually, “the pearl” is a convolute end of the upper part of the beak, defined by an incised curl.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.50.632
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. 523, p. 358
  • Jenny So, Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2019), pp. 174-77, fig. 22

Exhibition History

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