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Description: Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums
All Winthrop objects under consideration here are held in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard Art Museums; in an effort to save space, this information has been omitted from captions and tombstones, although the objects’ unique accession numbers have been included. Unless otherwise noted, it can safely be assumed that the object under discussion is from...
PublisherHarvard Art Museums
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00041.004
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Note to Reader
All Winthrop objects under consideration here are held in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard Art Museums; in an effort to save space, this information has been omitted from captions and tombstones, although the objects’ unique accession numbers have been included. Unless otherwise noted, it can safely be assumed that the object under discussion is from Harvard’s Winthrop Collection.
Chronology
By using historical dynasties to define artistic periods, traditional scholarship implies that dynastic changes were important drivers for artistic changes. While political impact on the birth, growth, and death of artistic traditions cannot be denied, it would be historically incorrect to assume that artistic traditions live and die with their ruling patrons. For this reason, my chapters use centuries to designate time spans, avoiding traditional dynastic designations as much as possible. The overlapping content of some chapters is symptomatic of an artistic continuum that supersedes political upheavals.
Dating
Jades present especially complex problems for dating, not only because generally accepted scientific methods, such as carbon-14 or thermoluminescence testing, cannot be applied, but also because many jades survived generations before they were buried, sometimes subjected to varying degrees of manipulation as they were passed down through the ages. Therefore, archaeologically excavated samples can provide only a terminus ante quem for the artifacts themselves, which may be contemporary with or older than the date of a tomb. Whenever possible, manipulations subsequent to the jade’s initial creation are indicated.
Regional Designations
Geographical rather than political-provincial indicators have been applied for spatial designations, because the communities of ancient China knew the land as composed of rivers, mountains, and valleys, and not as the modern artificial constructs of provincial boundaries. Hence, modern province names will in general not be indicated in connection with site names. When they are, it is to serve modern identification purposes. However, certain practices used widely by Chinese archaeologists are adopted for ease of reference; for example, “M” refers to “tomb,” and shorthand such as “site/sector/tomb” is used for locations at the Niuheliang site.
Notes and References
The chapters present a broad narrative recounting the historical development of jade production and use throughout ancient China. Details of particular scholarly interests behind the ideas presented in the narrative are often embedded in the notes and references to individual papers that accompany each chapter. Readers are encouraged to follow them for in-depth information according to their interests. The same applies to the 102 objects selected as highlights from the more than 600 included in Max Loehr’s 1975 publication, which remains the definitive catalogue of the collection. The reader is encouraged to consult related objects (cited as Loehr 1975: cat. xx) in the entries and notes for a more comprehensive picture of the collection.
The frequency and quantity of new archaeological discoveries means that whatever is stated in these chapters is a “best estimation” based on current information. Some finds are so new that they can be referred to in only the most general of terms, as detailed reports were not yet available at the time of writing.
Chinese Language
Chinese characters have largely been left out of the main text, except in cases where it aids in the translation of literary or historical texts. A Chinese glossary with key terms—artistic, political, geographic, and cultural—has been included for readers’ convenience, and the bibliography contains a robust selection of both English and Chinese secondary sources.
Images for Catalogue Entries
As a deliberate departure from many catalogues of ancient Chinese jades, most Winthrop jades presented here have been illustrated close to size wherever possible, to present as faithful a picture of the object at hand and to avoid misleading the reader through exaggeration. Selected enlargements of certain objects should provide details not easily visible in the smaller images. At the same time, unusually large items have been reduced in size to fit the page.
Note to Reader
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