1. Purchased from Seaouke Yue of Shanghai, in New York. For price, see Original Miscellaneous List, p. 337.
2. Original attribution: Chinese. Chou. See further, S.I. 1420, Appendix IX. Said to have been in the collection of the Viceroy Tuan Fang and to have been excavated in Sianfu, Shensi.
3. (Undated folder sheet note) Sp. G. is 2.941.
4. (I.M., 1945) Chou dynasty. Cf. Laufer "Jade," pp. 280 and 281, figs. 184 and 185.
5. (W.B. Trousdale, 1964) Chou dynasty. Late Eastern Chou, 4th-3rd century B.C. Scabbard chape.
Re: Paragraph 2, above: This piece is not illustrated in the catalogue of the Tuan Fang collection ("T'ao-chai ku-yu t'u," Shanghai, 1936).
6. (H.E. Buckman, 1964) The Envelope file contained no further information, and has now been destroyed.
7. (T. Lawton, 1978) For two similar excavated examples, unearthed from a late Eastern Chou tomb near Ch'eng-tu, Szechwan province, see "K'ao-ku hsueh-pao," 1956, no. 3 plate facing page 16, figs. 7 and 8, and pl. VI following pages 20, no. 6.
8. (T. Lawton, 1982 from an exhibition label) Fashioned of translucent mottled jade, the trapezoidal chape tapers to thin edges at the sides. Geometric bands, framed within a narrow border, decorate the surfaces of the chape. Some portions of the symmetrical decoration are worked in low relief; others are indicated by incised lines, thereby providing subtle variations within the total composition. Signs of wear appear on the surface of the chape, the most conspicuous being a chip missing from the upper left corner.
A shallow central hole is bored into the top lenticular surface. Usually, on jade scabbard chapes of this type, 2 smaller holes, drilled obliquely, connect with the central opening. Those smaller holes are missing on the Freer chape, suggesting that the piece might conceivably have served as a sword pommel. At least one instance of such a jade pommel is attested by archaeological finds. The size of the Freer jade, however, supports its designation as a chape, in spite of the single hole. Two jade chapes related in shape and decoration to the Freer example were unearthed in a Warring States period context at the rich archaeological site of Yang-tzu-shan, near Ch'eng-tu, Szechwan Province.
9. (J. Smith per Keith Wilson, 8/14/2008) Primary classification: Jade; secondary classification: Weapon and Armament.
10. (Jeffrey Smith per Matthew Clarke, July 8, 2022) Medium changed from "Jade" to "Jade (nephrite)."
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