Pendants, beads, and gold chain

Object Details

• Label

  When the museum acquired this assemblage in 1930, shortly after the discoveries at Jincun, these four pendants and six cylindrical beads were attached to the linked gold chain as shown. Recent scientific study confirms both the jade and the chain are genuine to the period, but they might not have been together in ancient times.

  To fashion these ornate pendants, Jincun craftsmen used relatively sophisticated metal tools to cut, drill, facet, and polish thin slices of beige nephrite. Patience and skill produced the dramatic contours, textured surfaces, and intricate openwork details that are an amazing aesthetic and technical advancement over the largely unadorned disks of the Neolithic period.

• Provenance

  Possibly excavated from a tomb of the late Warring States period at Jincun, Henan province, China [1]

  1930

  C. T. Loo & Company, New York, NY, 1930 [2]

  From 1930

  Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from C. T. Loo & Company, New York, NY in 1930 [3]

  Notes:

  [1] See Thomas Lawton, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period: Change and Continuity, 480-222 B.C., exhibition cat. (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1982), pg. 132, cat. no. 77.

  [2] Object file, undated folder sheet. See also Freer Gallery of Art Purchase List file, Collections Management Office.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Ancient Chinese Jades and Bronzes (November 20, 2010 to January 3, 2016)

  Chinese Art (February 18, 1983 to April 1, 1987)

  Chinese Art of the Warring States Period: Change and Community, 480-222 B.C. (September 30, 1982 to February 17, 1983)

  Ancient Chinese Jade (September 4, 1980 to March 6, 1981)

  Chinese Art (January 1, 1963 to March 6, 1981)

  Chinese Bronze, Jade, Metalwork (March 1, 1957 to January 1, 1963)

  Centennial Exhibition, Galleries 14 and 15 (February 25, 1956 to March 1, 1957)

  Untitled Exhibition, Chinese Art, 1955 (August 26, 1955 to October 25, 1955)

  Untitled Exhibition, Ancient Chinese Art, 1946 (May 7, 1946 to February 25, 1956)

  Untitled Exhibition, Chinese Art, 1944 (November 15, 1944 to May 6, 1946)

  Untitled Exhibition, Ancient Chinese Art, 1943 (March 22, 1943 to November 17, 1944)

  Untitled Exhibition, Chinese Metalwork (March 14, 1931 to March 22, 1943)

  Untitled Exhibition, Shahnama and Chinese Art (March 24, 1930 to May 5, 1933)

• Previous custodian or owner

  C.T. Loo & Company (1914-1948)

• Origin

  Probably Jincun, Henan province, China

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Jewelry and Ornament

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  BCE 0s

• Name

  C.T. Loo & Company

• Place

  China, Jincun, Henan province

• Topic

  Art, Wirework, Eastern Zhou dynasty (770 - 221 BCE), Carving, Chinese Art, Dance, Nephrite, Jade, Woman, Warring States period (475 - 221 BCE), Dragon, Tiger

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Ornaments, Jewelry