Four pieces of a mouth organ (sheng)
date: label: Date
content: 475-221 BCE
label: Period
content: Warring States period
notes: label: Provenance
content: ?-1991
label: Provenance
content: John Hadley Cox (1913-2005), method of acquisition unknown [1]
label: Provenance
content: From 1991
label: Provenance
content: National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, gift of John Hadley Cox [2]
label: Provenance
content: Notes:
label: Provenance
content: [1] See “Listing of Objects offered to the FGA by Mr. John Hadley Cox,” September 12, 1991, copy in object file.
label: Provenance
content: John Hadley Cox (1913-2005) was an educator and a collector of Chinese archaeological ceramic, pottery, and bronze vessels, predominantly from the Changsha region of Hunan Province in South Central China. Upon graduating from Yale University in 1935 (B.A.), he spent two years teaching at Yale University's Yale-in-China program in Changsha. Whilst in China, he amassed his collection of ceramics and other materials from active archaeological sites in the region. During World War II, Cox served as an officer in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) (now the CIA), and he was sent to Shanghai in 1945 to collect counterintelligence. Cox was also a fellow of the Harvard-Yenching Institute of Far Eastern Studies, an Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Michigan, and a linguistics professor at Georgetown University. In 1991, Cox donated 106 potsherds of Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Chinese origin to the Freer Gallery Study Collection. Cox also left numerous items of his collection to the art gallery of his alma mater.
label: Provenance
content: [2] See Deed of Gift from John Hadley Cox, December 19, 1991, copy in object file. This work is part of the museum’s Freer Study Collection.
label: Provenance
content: Research completed July 17, 2025
label: Collection
content: Freer Study Collection
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: John Hadley Cox (1913-2005)
topic: label: Topic
content: wood
label: Topic
content: Eastern Zhou dynasty (770 - 221 BCE)
label: Topic
content: Warring States period (475 - 221 BCE)
label: Topic
content: China
label: Topic
content: Chinese Art
setName: label: Related Online Resources
content: Google Arts & Culture
label: See more items in
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of the John Hadley Cox Archaeological Study Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: FSC-X-22a-d
objectType: label: Type
content: Musical Instrument
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Wood and gourd