Garment hook (daigou) with interlace

Historical period(s)
Warring States period, Late Eastern Zhou dynasty, 5th-4th century BCE
Medium
Bronze inlaid with gold
Dimensions
H x W x D: 10.6 x 1.8 x 2.2 cm (4 3/16 x 11/16 x 7/8 in)
Geography
China
Credit Line
Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art
Accession Number
F1949.24
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Jewelry and Ornament, Metalwork
Type

Garment hook

Keywords
China, Eastern Zhou dynasty (770 - 221 BCE), Warring States period (475 - 221 BCE)
Provenance

To 1948
Jun Tsei Tai (1911-1992), Shanghai, to November 1948 [1]

From 1948 to 1949
C. T. Loo & Company, New York, purchased from Jun Tsei Tai in November 1948 [2]

From 1949
Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from C. T. Loo & Company on November 7, 1949 [3]

Notes:

[1] See C. T. Loo's stockcard no. 46141: "Gild bronze buckle, curved rounded body with dragon's head hook, entirely covered with floral motives in gold inlaid. Late Chou," C. T. Loo & Frank Caro Archive, Musée Guimet, Paris, copy in object file. According to an annotation on the stockcard, Loo purchased the object from J. T. Tai in China. Jun Tsei Tai (more commonly known in the West as J. T. Tai), known also as Dai Fubao in Shanghai, was a successful art dealer who was initially based in Shanghai China. Tai became one of C. T. Loo's most prolific suppliers in the 1940s. In 1949, however, J. T. Tai fled with his family to Hong Kong, when Communist leaders came into power. In 1950, he immigrated to New York City, where he established J. T. Tai & Company, a successful company that specialized in the sale of Chinese arts.

[2] See C. T. Loo's stockcard cited in note 1. On February 21, 1949, the object was sent to the Freer Gallery for examination.

[3] See C. T. Loo's invoice, dated November 7, 1949, copy in object file.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Jun Tsei Tai 1911-1992
C.T. Loo & Company 1914-1948

Published References
  • Martin J. Powers. Pattern and Person: Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical China. Harvard East Asia Monographs, no. 262 Cambridge, Massachusetts. .
  • Robert Dale Jacobsen. Inlaid Bronzes of Pre-Imperial China: A Classical Tradition and Its Later Revivals. 2 vols. Ann Arbor. pl. 279.
  • Dr. John Alexander Pope, Thomas Lawton, Harold P. Stern. The Freer Gallery of Art. 2 vols., Washington and Tokyo, 1971-1972. cat. 24, vol. 1: p. 155.
  • Masterpieces of Chinese and Japanese Art: Freer Gallery of Art handbook. Washington, 1976. p. 20.
  • Thomas Lawton. Chinese Art of the Warring States Period: Change and Continuity, 480-222 B.C. Washington, 1982-1983. cat. 53, p. 104.
Collection Area(s)
Chinese Art
Web Resources
Google Cultural Institute
CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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