Period:Warring States period Production date:5thC BC – 2ndC BC
Materials:bronze, jade, glass,
Technique:gilded (?)
Subjects:taotie mask cattle (buffalo)
Dimensions:Length: 19 centimetres Width: 3 centimetres
Description:
Gilt bronze belt-hook inland with jade taotie masks and glass beads.
IMG
![图片[1]-belt-fitting BM-2022-3034.186-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Warring States period/Jades/mid_630_.jpg)
![图片[2]-belt-fitting BM-2022-3034.186-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Warring States period/Jades/mid_630_1.jpg)
Comments:This substantial arched belt hook has imaginary animal faces at both ends, and the hook itself is the head of a small creature, its neck drawn down to the animal‘s head that lies at the top of the main panel. A much larger, bolder head is at the far end. In between the two heads the bronze is cast to frame the settings of four rectangular jade plaques with incised taotie faces. Two buffaloes lie back to back along the main section of the hook, their bodies in sharply angled planes. There are small glass beads cut in half set at either end. On the reverse the hook is plain with a large stud for attachment to the belt. Gold, silver, bronze and iron garment hooks inlaid with jade and glass were probably among the most luxurious items of personal dress in the Eastern Zhou period. Many of them, as with the present piece, display a number of different materials, such as gold, silvering and precious stones or glass on a metal base. Two similar pieces have come from Xinyang in Henan province, a site that has revealed tombs of the Chu state. One of the Xinyang hooks has alternating panels of jade and repousse gold, the repousse comprising small intertwined tiger-like creatures with tiny beading along their spines. Perhaps closer to the present garment hook are a number of large pieces on which the metal sections are cast to show creatures in three dimensions. The most magnificent is a piece inlaid with three small discs from Guweicun at Hui xian in Henan province. The buffalo heads on this piece resemble those on the present hook. Although both are in gilt bronze, it seems likely that bronze versions were copied from gold examples, such as three in the Winthrop Collection, Harvard University. Few gold versions have survived, but they may have been more numerous in the Eastern Zhou. The interest in gold entered China during the late Western Zhou and early Eastern Zhou, perhaps through the intermediary of the Qin state. The decision to use jade rather than precious gems would, however, have been an entirely Chinese choice. On the present hook and the Xinyang one, rectangular jade plaques mimic the shape of the gold ones, while on the Winthrop hook are fragments surviving from two different dragon-shaped pendants. See Rawson 1995, p.305, cat.no.22.1.
Materials:bronze, jade, glass,
Technique:gilded (?)
Subjects:taotie mask cattle (buffalo)
Dimensions:Length: 19 centimetres Width: 3 centimetres
Description:
Gilt bronze belt-hook inland with jade taotie masks and glass beads.
IMG
Comments:This substantial arched belt hook has imaginary animal faces at both ends, and the hook itself is the head of a small creature, its neck drawn down to the animal‘s head that lies at the top of the main panel. A much larger, bolder head is at the far end. In between the two heads the bronze is cast to frame the settings of four rectangular jade plaques with incised taotie faces. Two buffaloes lie back to back along the main section of the hook, their bodies in sharply angled planes. There are small glass beads cut in half set at either end. On the reverse the hook is plain with a large stud for attachment to the belt. Gold, silver, bronze and iron garment hooks inlaid with jade and glass were probably among the most luxurious items of personal dress in the Eastern Zhou period. Many of them, as with the present piece, display a number of different materials, such as gold, silvering and precious stones or glass on a metal base. Two similar pieces have come from Xinyang in Henan province, a site that has revealed tombs of the Chu state. One of the Xinyang hooks has alternating panels of jade and repousse gold, the repousse comprising small intertwined tiger-like creatures with tiny beading along their spines. Perhaps closer to the present garment hook are a number of large pieces on which the metal sections are cast to show creatures in three dimensions. The most magnificent is a piece inlaid with three small discs from Guweicun at Hui xian in Henan province. The buffalo heads on this piece resemble those on the present hook. Although both are in gilt bronze, it seems likely that bronze versions were copied from gold examples, such as three in the Winthrop Collection, Harvard University. Few gold versions have survived, but they may have been more numerous in the Eastern Zhou. The interest in gold entered China during the late Western Zhou and early Eastern Zhou, perhaps through the intermediary of the Qin state. The decision to use jade rather than precious gems would, however, have been an entirely Chinese choice. On the present hook and the Xinyang one, rectangular jade plaques mimic the shape of the gold ones, while on the Winthrop hook are fragments surviving from two different dragon-shaped pendants. See Rawson 1995, p.305, cat.no.22.1.
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