Jade Plaque

Description

This beautiful pair of late Eastern Zhou openwork jade plaques illustrate a level of creativity and technical achievement that was unequaled before or since. Taking the shape of a pair of fantastic creatures, they are at once tigerlike, rhinolike, and dragonlike. Their strong silhouettes are marked with shallow relief bands, and their subtly swelling embellished surfaces are finished to the same degree on both sides.

Provenance

(James J. Lally, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?–1991); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1991–)

Jade Plaque

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475–221 BCE

Accession Number

1991.78.1

Medium

nephrite

Dimensions

Overall: 22.5 x 8.9 cm (8 7/8 x 3 1/2 in.)

Classification

Jade

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund and the John L. Severance Fund