Jades for Life and Death

Classification: Ceremonial Object

Maker(s): Artist: Liangzhu culture 良渚 (ca. 3300-ca. 2250 BCE)

Historical period(s): Late Neolithic period, ca. 3300-2250 BCE

Object Date: ca. 3300-2250 BCE

Medium: Jade (nephrite)

Dimension(s): Diam x D: 13.8 x 1.7 cm (5 7/16 x 11/16 in)

Origin: China, Lake Tai region

Credit Line: Gift of Charles Lang Freer

Collection: Freer Gallery of Art Collection

Accession Number: F1915.51

: 璧
新石器時代晚期良渚文化（公元前3300--2250年）
中國太湖地區
軟玉
直徑13.8、厚1.7釐米
查爾斯·蘭·佛利爾贈送
器物編號：F1915.51

Provenance: To 1915
Yamanaka & Company, New York to 1915 [1]

From 1915 to 1919
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), purchased from Yamanaka & Company, New York in 1915 [2]

From 1920
The Freer Gallery of Art, gift of Charles Lang Freer in 1920 [3]

Notes:

[1] Undated folder sheet note. See Original Miscellaneous List, S.I. 549, pg. 155, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives.

[2] See note 1.

[3] The original deed of Charles Lang Freer's gift was signed in 1906. The collection was received in 1920 upon the completion of the Freer Gallery.

Previous owner(s): Yamanaka and Co. 山中商会 (C.L. Freer source) (1917-1965)
Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919)

Description: Perforated disk of the type pi [bi] 璧; bored from both sides; darkly mottled brown and olive green with reddish and yellow tints; irregular in thickness and circumference, unevenly cut leaving saw marks. (Three damaged areas on rim.)

Curatorial Remarks

1. Bought from Yamanaka and Company, New York. For price, see Original Miscellaneous List, p. 155. $75.

2. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Original attribution: Chinese. Prior to San Tai [Sandai] 三代. See further, S.I. 549, Appendix VII (see Paragraph 5).

3. (Isabel Ingram Mayer, 1945) Chou [Zhou] 周 dynasty. Possibly an unfinished piece or one made imperfectly for burial.

4. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Sp. G. is 2.997. Nephrite.

5. (H. Elise Buckman, 1964) The Envelope File contained no further information, and has now been destroyed.

6. (Thomas Lawton, 1978) Attribution changed from Chou [Zhou] 周 to Neolithic. See Folder Sheet F1917.19.
7. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, January 21, 2008) Late Neolithic period, Lake Tai 太湖 region.

8. (Stephen Allee per Keith Wilson, February 4, 2008) On this date entered: Date (3300--2250 BCE), Artist (Liangzhu 良渚 culture), Title, Object name. Added designation "(nephrite)" to Medium, as per Wen Guang 聞廣 using infrared spectroscopy (June 1997); plus Description per Jenny F. So and Dimensions per Christine Lee, from Jade Project Database.

9. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, July 17, 2008) Ceremonial Objects added as secondary classification.

10. (Jeffrey Smith, April 13, 2016) Transferred from Description: (Jenny F. So, from Jade Project Database) Mottled dark brown and olive green with red and yellow intrusions; discolored from prolonged handling. Biconical hole with ledge at meeting point, drilled off center. Unevenly round and thick; possibly trimmed down. Surface smooth with remains of slice mark.

Published References

J. Keith Wilson, Jingmin Zhang. Jades for Life and Death. .

CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0): This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page.

Save this image | Terms of use

Disk (bi 璧)

Related Objects

Related Media

Web Resources