Ritual Disc of Unknown Use
CultureChinese
DateWestern Han dynasty (206 B.C.E-9 C.E.)
MediumGilt bronze, silver plate, turquoise, and glass
DimensionsOverall: 5/16 × 5 1/2 inches (0.79 × 13.97 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: the Lillian M. Diveley Fund
Object number2000.11
On View
On viewGallery Location
- 231
Collections
Gallery LabelThis openwork disc epitomizes the Han love of combining a variety of precious materials-turquoise, gilt bronze, silver and glass-to form a single luxurious, multi-colored object. The design brilliantly combines the rotating dynamism of the dragons, their claws grasping each others' bodies around the circumference of the disc, with the heraldic formality of the central quatrefoil.
R. H. Ellsworth Ltd.;
Purchased from R. H. Ellsworth Ltd. by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2000.
Orientations, Special issue for the Chinese art collection in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Vol. 39, no. 8 (November/December 2008), 51 (repro.).
Colin Mackenzie, with contributions by Ling-En Lu, Masterworks of Chinese art: the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2011), 30-31, no. 5 (repro.).
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R74-9/26
