Garment hook with incised dragon elements and irregular curls

1. Bought from Dr. J. D. Chen [Chen Rentao] 陳仁濤, Hong Kong. For price, see Freer Gallery of Art Purchase List after 1920.

2. (Thomas Lawton, 1968) According to the entry in Ch'en Hen t'ao [Chen Rentao] 陳仁濤's Chin kuei lun ku ch'u chi [Jingui lung u chu ji] 金匱論古初集 (Xianggang: Yazhou shiyinju, 1952), p. 89, the belt hook was excavated at Shou hsien [Shou xian] 壽縣 in Anhui 安徽 province.

3. (Thomas Lawton, 1976) Attribution is changed from "Late Chou [Zhou] 周" to "Late Eastern Chou [Zhou] 周, 5th--3rd century BCE."
4. (Thomas Lawton, 1982) Changed from "5th--3rd century" to "4th century BCE."
 
In Chinese Art of the Warring States Period: Change and Continuity, 48222 B.C..C. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1982), cat. no. 55: Formed by alternating sections of jade and gold, the garment hook is an unusually luxurious example of WarriStates workmanshiphip. The hook portion consists of a monster mask modeled fully in the round. An aperture at the crest of the hook may originally have been inset with inlay. Two horizontal concave bands mark the juncture between the gold hook and plain, broad jade border. The large gold button projects from the back of a gold segment decorated with a pair of bird headed creatures. Those creatures are shown seated on their haunchewith forelegsegs raised to grasp their tails, which curl upward from between their legs. Small oval depressions in the eyes and a crescent shaped aperture between the pairs of lower legs may originally have held inlays. Tsymmetry introducedced by these two hybrid creatures is observed throughout the garment hook. Rising from the biheads areare two jade cylinders, joined at the center by a small jade membrane and fitted at the ends with linked gocaps havinging a single concave band. The jade surfaces are covered with a symmetrically arranged dense pattern of C shaped curls. Small, incised circles and diagonal striations further enrich the jade surface. The backs the jadeade pieces are plain. On the basis of the jade decoration, the garment hook can be dated to the 4th century BCE. [1]

The combination of gold metal and white jade provides a sumptuous, albeit unusually heavy, garment hook. According to one source, the garment hook was unearthed at Shou Hsien [Shou xian] 壽縣, Anhui 安徽 province, and was made the stateate of Ch'u [Chu] 楚. [2] The sumptuous appearance of the piece would support such a provenance, althouno comparableble archaeologically attested examples are extant.

[1] Jessica Rawson, "The Surface Decoration of Jades of the Chou and Han Dynasties," Oriental Art 1975.1:36--55.

[2] Ch'en Hen t'ao [Chen Rentao] 陳仁濤, Chin kuei lun ku ch'u chi [Jingui lung u chu ji] 金匱論古初集 (Xianggang: Yazhou shiyinju, 1952), pp. 89--90.

5. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, July 1, 2008) "Jewelry" added as secondary classification.

6. (Jeffrey Smith per Janet Douglas, June 17, 2010) "Nephrite" added as modifier to existing Medium of "jade" based on  conservation analysis.

7. (Susan Kitsoulis per Keith Wilson, July 9, 2010) Deleted "belt hook" from Object Name.

8. (Jeffrey Smith per Matthew Clarke, July 8, 2022) Medium changed from "Jade (nephrite), gold" to "Gold with jade (nephrite) inlay."

9. (Najiba Choudhury per Keith Wilson, March 28, 2023) Title changed from "Buckle, (found at Shou Xian?)" to "Garment hook with incised dragon elements and irregular curls"; Object Name changed from "Jewelry" to "Garment hook"; added "Warring States period" to Period Two; Date changed from "4th century BCE" to "475–221 BCE"; added Geography as "purportedly found at Anhui province, Shou xian"; added Chinese translation by Jingmin Zhang; added the following to the Description field "Buckle, found at Chou-hsien [Shou xian] 壽縣; jade with gold mounting."