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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

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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. 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