Ceremonial Disk with Grain Pattern (Bi) (475–221 BCE): Art, History and Details

Ceremonial Disk with Grain Pattern (Bi) (475–221 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Jade disks of later centuries developed from the Neolithic period’s plain design to incorporate dense surface decoration. This example bears raised dots with finely incised spirals--so-called grain patterns--arranged in diagonal rows.

Object facts

• Title: Ceremonial Disk with Grain Pattern (Bi)
• Date: 475–221 BCE
• Culture: China, Warring States period (475–221 BCE)
• Type: Jade
• Technique: jade (nephrite)
• Dimensions: Diameter: 18.4 cm (7 1/4 in.)
• Collection: China - Zhou Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1952.567

A detail from the museum

The disk's outer rim is incised with a 47-character poem written in seal script, dated to the gengyin year of the Qianlong emperor's reign [1770].

Collection credit

Anonymous Gift

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “Chinese Carved Jades.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 41, no. 4 (April 1954): 67–68, 71.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.