Page 77 - China, 5000 years : innovation and transformation in the arts

Innovation in Ancient

Chinese Metalwork

ERLITOU PERIOD Jenny So

By the early second millennium bce Curator of Ancient Chinese Art,
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M.
Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C.

ancient China's artists and craftsmen

had already been creating ceramics and

working jades for over two thousand

years. Their mastery of these two materi-

als is evident in the outstanding

workmanship, elegant shapes, and sophis-

ticated designs that characterize the

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