Detail View: The AMICA Library: Pendant
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AMICA ID:
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CMA_.1953.628
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AMICA Library Year:
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1998
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Object Type:
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Decorative Arts and Utilitarian Objects
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Creator Nationality:
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Asian; Far East Asian; Chinese
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Creator Dates/Places:
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China
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Creator Name-CRT:
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China, Hongshan Culture, Neolithic Period
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Title:
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Pendant
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Title Type:
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Primary
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View:
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Full View
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Creation Date:
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3000-2000 BC
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Creation Start Date:
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-3000
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Creation End Date:
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-2000
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Materials and Techniques:
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jade (nephrite)
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Classification Term:
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Jade
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Classification Term:
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Jade
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Dimensions:
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Overall: 13.2cm
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AMICA Contributor:
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The Cleveland Museum of Art
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Owner Location:
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Cleveland, Ohio, USA
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ID Number:
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1953.628
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Credit Line:
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Gift of Severance A. Millikin
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Rights:
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Context:
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Jade--a material almost synonymous with China--designates a number of different types of beautifully colored stones that are patterned by natural veins. All examples are extremely hard and must be worked not by cutting but through a grinding process in which quartz or garnet sand is used to abrade away unwanted portions of the stone. In light of the rarity of the material and the technical difficulty of shaping it, it is not surprising that jade was reserved for the greatest artistic achievements of antiquity, including precious jewelry and ceremonial objects such as emblematic axes. Startling ongoing excavations in eastern China are, in fact, showing that the affection for the stone is much older than previously thought, predating the Bronze Age to stretch back to prehistoric times. One recently discovered Stone Age culture named Hongshan, located in northeastern China, has yielded jades that provide new insight into an amazing object long owned by the museum. The subject of the work is a seated figurewith a massive, snouted head supporting four rounded horns. It sits, European style, with pendant legs joined at the bottom by a smooth projecting crescent and its arms in its lap. Once thought to be a tuning peg for a Bronze Age musical instrument, thisunusual jade instead resembles sculptural pendants found at Hongshan sites. These newly uncovered jades help prove the purpose of the channel drilled through the shoulders of Cleveland's jade--presumably intended to accommodate a cord--and the function of the object as a pendant. Like other Hongshan jades, this pendant is a simply but naturalistically modeled symmetrical form with smooth swelling surfaces and few linear details. Although few in number, such pendants are important since they represent theearliest surviving examples of representational sculpture in China. Large complex pendants such as this one must have played an important role in Hongshan society. The subject, probably a human figure transformed by a frightful mask rather than an imaginarycreature composed of human and animal elements, suggests that the pendant may have functioned as a shamanistic object used in special rites linking the mortal and spiritual world. Chinese archaeologists have also suggested that larger representationalsculpture may have played a role in ritual ceremonies, too, because they have uncovered fragments of monumental terracotta images in the ruins of Stone Age buildings at Hongshan sites. K.W.
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Related Image Identifier Link:
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CMA_.1953.628.tif
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