玉琉璃象嵌帯鉤ぎょくるりぞうがんたいこう

  • 中国
  • 中国・前漢時代
  • 前206-後9年
  • 青銅、鍍金、玉、ガラス
  • H-19.8

この青銅鍍金の帯鉤は体をくねらせた龍の形をしている。躯幹部には緑色の曲がった玉の板が三枚はめこまれている。他の端に表現された頭部は長い耳を持った狼型をなし、開いた口には鋭い牙がのぞいている。その三本の脚は鋳造による透かし細工で表され、足の爪は再度躯幹部とつながり、玉の板をその場所に固定する鉤爪の役割を果たしている。鉤の部分は躯幹部から伸びる長い首をもつ猫科の獣の頭部の形をしている。玉を挿入した帯鉤は戦国時代(前475-221)後期から前漢時代にかけて制作され、世界中のコレクション中に見出すことができる。玉は文様を彫る場合と、このように装飾を施さない場合がある。こうした帯鉤は熟練した工人によって、戦国時代後期から漢代にかけて当時のエリートのために制作された。玉は中国においては新石器時代以来潔白さと威信の最も重要な象徴物であり、今日もなお尊崇の対象であり続けている。

 この2頭の龍をかたどった帯鈎には、その体部に3つの部分に分けられた緩やかなS字形に曲がる無装飾の玉が嵌められ、両端の龍頭には青色練ガラス製の眼が象嵌されている。

Catalogue Entry

This curved, gilt-bronze belt hook is formed into a sinuous dragon. Its eyes are inlaid with turquoise-colored glass, which may not be original, and its body with three curved green jade plaques. Its head is lupine with long ears and an open jaw with visible sharp fangs. Three of its legs are cast in open work, its paws rejoining its body to act as prongs to hold the jade plaques in place. The hook itself is a feline head with a long neck extending from the body of the belt hook.

The belt hook was cast by the lost-wax method and then gilded by mercury amalgam, a technique that had been invented in China around the fourth century B.C. The jades were slipped into position through two open slits in the back of the hook and placed on a ledge provided for them and attached with a light paste. The veins of the jade were stained in certain places over time by the malachite encrustation that built up on the bronze interior of the belt hook, indicating that the jades are the original inlays. The reverse is set with a stud for attachment and two long openings, revealing the ledges on which the jade plaques rest and the light colored paste that hold them in place.

Belt hooks inset with jade plaques were made during the late Warring States (475-221 B.C.). and Western Han periods, and can be found in collections throughout the world. Sometimes the jades are carved, as they are on catalogue number 91, and sometimes they are undecorated, as they are here.1 Such belt hooks were purely luxury items, created by master craftsmen for the elite during the late Warring States and Han periods. Jade had been the most important symbol of incorruptibility and prestige in China since the Neolithic period, and continues to be revered today.
ECB


1. Compare those in the Pierre Uldry collection: Uldry et al. 1994, nos. 45-47, 49; and a superb example in the Hotung collection: published with comparative examples in Rawson et al. 1995, p. 304-5, no. 22.