The buttonlike knob on the back of this small garment hook served to fasten a belt or robe. A dragon of jade curls sinuously within its bronze mount—a composite creature combining a bull’s head and a serpentine body terminating in a fishlike tail curled over one horn. The dragon’s finely incised curls are echoed in a complex pattern of gold and silver embellishing the mount. Thin strands of these malleable metals, applied individually or compacted together into thicker ribbons, were pressed into grooves in the bronze, then ground flush with the surface and polished to a high luster. This combination of descriptive and abstract patterns—facial features, scales, volutes, and spirals—is a masterwork of metallic inlay.
The jade dragon is datable about three hundred years earlier than the inlaid bronze garment hook in which it was carefully set. The exquisite “recycling” of ancient jades demonstrates their value to those who inherited or discovered such pieces and then custom-designed new contexts for their use.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Bronze inlaid with gold and silver and inset with jade
Dimensions
8.3 × 8.3 × 2 cm (3 1/4 × 3 1/4 × 13/16 in.)
Credit Line
Lucy Maud Buckingham Collection
Reference Number
1930.703
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Annual Report (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1930), 27.
Charles F. Kelley, “A Chinese Buckle of the Han Dynasty,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (September 1930): 76.
Sueji Umehara, Shina kodō seikwa (Osaka: Yamanaka and Co., 1933), pt. 3, vol. 1, pl. 75.
Charles F. Kelley, Handbook of Oriental Art (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1933), 14, fig. 10.
London, Burlington House, International Exhibition of Chinese Art (exh. cat., 1935–36), 388.
Laurence C. S. Sickman, ed., Oriental Art, Series O, Section II: Early Chinese Art (Newton, MA: The University Prints, 1938), O115.
Charles Fabens Kelley and Ch’en Meng-chia, Chinese Bronzes from the Buckingham Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1946), 104–105, 161, pl. LX.
Chinese Jade Throughout the Ages exh. cat. (The Arts Council of Great Britain, London; The Oriental Ceramic Society, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, , 1975), 51, 152, no. 119.
Chicago Bijutsukan Meihenten: Masterpieces of Chinese Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka; also exhibited at MOA Museum of Art, Atami; Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, 1989), cat. 21.
Elinor Pearlstein and James T. Ulak, Asian Art in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Harry N. Abrams, 1993), 26 (ill.), 147.
London, Burlington House, International Exhibition of Chinese Art, 1935–36, cat. 388.
London, Arts Council of Great Britain; Oriental Ceramic Society; Victoria and Albert Museum, Chinese Jade Throughout the Ages, 1975, cat. 119.
Osaka, Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Chicago Bijutsukan Meihinten: Masterpieces of Chinese Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago, 1989, cat. 21; Atami, MOA Museum of Art; Tokyo, Idemitsu Museum of Art.
C. T. Loo and Company, New York; sold to Kate Sturges Buckingham (1858–1937), Chicago, [Kate served as executor of her sister Lucy Maud Buckingham’s estate and continued expanding Lucy’s collection following her death in 1920] Jun. 13, 1930; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, Jun. 13, 1930.
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