Title

Cylindrical Jade Cup

Culture

Chinese

Period

Ming dynasty, 1368-1644

Medium

Translucent greenish white and brown nephrite

Museum

Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, MA

Description

Translucent greenish white and smoke-brown jade. The cup has an annular handle with a sharply recurved spur. It is supported on three feet shaped as squatting monkeys whose hands rest on their knees. The wall is decorated with incised geometric and zoomorphic patterns arranged in three friezes, which are separated by rope bands. The upper frieze consists of interlocked C -spirals. The much wider frieze below the first is filled with alternately inverted, vertical combinations of addorsed animal heads and varying spiral motifs. In the lower-most frieze appears a diagonally moving, wave-like band with hooks against a criss-crossed ground. On the handle and on the bottom are engraved in simple lines curvilinear cloud-like figures, freely adapted to the given spaces, without symmetry or apparent pattern. Eastern Han or later.

Uploaded: 2025-05-28