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Garment Hook

CC0 Public Domain Designation

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Date:

Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–221 B.C.)

Artist:

China

About this artwork

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.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Arts of Asia

Title

Garment Hook

Place

China (Artist's nationality:)

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.

310 BCE–90 BCE

Medium

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

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/5918/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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