Pair of Jade Plaques (475–221 BCE): Art, History and Details

Pair of Jade Plaques (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:

This beautiful pair of late Eastern Zhou openwork jade plaques illustrate a level of creativity and technical achievement that was unequaled before or since. Taking the shape of a pair of fantastic creatures, they are at once tiger-like, rhino-like, and dragon-like. Their strong silhouettes are marked with shallow relief bands, and their subtly swelling embellished surfaces are finished to the same degree on both sides.

Object facts

• Title: Pair of Jade Plaques
• Date: 475–221 BCE
• Culture: China, Henan province, Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–256 BCE), Warring States period (475–221 BCE)
• Type: Jade
• Technique: nephrite
• Dimensions: Part 1: 22.5 x 8.9 cm (8 7/8 x 3 1/2 in.); Part 2: 20.8 x 8.7 cm (8 3/16 x 3 7/16 in.)
• Collection: China - Zhou Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1991.78

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund and the John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. "Selected 1991 Acquisitions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 79, no. 2 (1992): 63-83.
• Wilson, J. Keith. "A Pair of Chinese Jade Plaques." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 4 (1993): 127-30.
• Wilson, J. Keith, and Anne E. Wardwell. "New Objects/New Insights: Cleveland's Recent Chinese Acquisitions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 8 (1994): 270-347.

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.