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Subject:A bold statement made by Pipane!!!
Posted By: Bill Thu, Apr 10, 2008
Pipane:
You are so funny. At first I thought if you are selling all these "authentic" Hongshan jades in your web site may be you would know at least something about Hongshan jades. However, so far the only criterion I saw you used in authenticating any Hongshan jades is "Baojiang", a jade term that was never mentioned in any Chinese jade books until the last 20 years. The exact definition of this term was even disagreed among Chinese jade collectors.
You said, "No need to be expert in archaic jades to see this is a modern copy" (from personal experience?) based on:
(1) "How would you explain that the light green color of the jade appears in some areas while others areas show brownish alteration if the overall structure of the jade is consistent?"
What exactly are you saying? That if this piece is authentic, the whole piece should be covered up with brown alteration? I would really worry if this is indeed the case because such alteration would be more than likely made artificially. Such natural alteration should never be found spread uniformly or with same severeness on the jade piece. It is unfortunate that we could not see the other side of this pig dragon but I can almost certain that the alteration would be much different and mostly likely a lot less severe. On many authentic Hongshan jades I saw, the severeness of such alteration found on both sides are very often quite different due to the bottom side came into more contact with more humid environment than the top side. Sometimes, one side almost looks new and the other side would be covered with alteration. The brown alteration found on this pig dragon, in my opinion and without being able to examine it personally, is genuine and very difficult to fake. I believe that is the same conclusion of Anita.
(2) "Don't you find highly suspicious that the inside top of the ears shows no color/ surface alteration? (between the ears)."
I would find it highly suspicious if the inside top of the ears would show the same alteration because more than likely it would be artificially created.
(3) "And I don't even talk about its general shape, its hole (shape and position) and many other details"
May be you should go into more details regarding its shape, form and especially tool marks, that may actually give more credibility to your expertise even you may be wrong.
The one thing I do not like is its large central hole because I cannot see a ridge in the midst of the hole and that means this hole was not drilled from both sides or might be drilled with metal tools. It is possible that this piece was drilled during later Hongshan period, probably a more refined piece with its hole drilled with bronze drilling tools. This is indicated by its well polished surface and refined carving that it may be a late Hongshan period jade piece.
(4) "From archaic jade point of view this light green "jade" color is "young". The exact same type of jade would have a different color if it would have been carved 5000 years ago. "
Again, this is the funniest statement I have ever heard regarding the "light green jade color being young". Are you saying the celadon color of this jade is too "young" to be authentic material for an authentic Hongshan jade carving or are you implying that if such celadon jade should have an "older" color after it was buried for thousands of years?
To me, this celadon jade can very well be of a high quality celadon nephrite jade that is similar to Hetian jade and was found to be one of the authentic materials used in making authentic Hongshan jades (with a specific gravity of at least 2.96 and a hardness of at least 6.0). The only puzzling part if this is indeed nephrite that I would not expect to see such heavy brown alteration on its surface unless it was buried in a very wet environment. However, most Hongshan tombs were found at the top of a hill slope (very few are at the bottom) and many Hongshan people were buried inside stone coffins where the buried jades were well protected from the surrounding elements.
One time you said that there were no authentic Hongshan turtle carapace (shell) but I had posted an excavated Hongshan jade turtle carapace that was made of the most beautiful yellow jade with fantastic luster that looks like it was “brand new” without any alteration. Would you attempt to call the jade color of this turtle carapace “new” too? Where are your evidences and supports for such “new” jade color cannot be that of an authentic Hongshan jade carvings?
It is indeed unfortunate that we cannot have higher resolution pictures or pictures from different angles of this pig dragon. If they are available, may be at least we can see if there is a central ridge at the top of its head (between its ears) or examining its carving lines to detect any unique tool marks that could be found only on authentic Hongshan pieces (with a combination of three different types of tool marks found at the same carving lines: small and short vertical carvings lines made with a tu (like the long curvy vertical line along both wings of a jade bird), then small horizontal lines parallel to each other carved inside these small vertical lines used to connect each of them to be joined together to become one long vertical line and finally very fine and long smooth lines carved with a rod-type tool in polishing off these horizontal lines inside the long vertical line.)
Without being able to examine this piece in person, all our opinions expressed in regard to this pig dragon would be simply educational guesses. Even if we are offered the opportunity in examining it personally, I am not sure either you or me, or even Anita can say with 100% certainty that this piece is authentic or fake. For you to make such a bold statement that “"No need to be expert in archaic jades to see this is a modern copy" without any supports or references, seems to be a little bit prejudicial and presumptuous to me. In this case, I believe I value the opinions of Anita regarding this piece more than those rendered by you and amazingly enough, I have not seen too many other members have expressed their opinions regarding this pig dragon.
May be in the future, instead of ridiculing all these Hongshan experts and auction houses in China, you would attempt to approach any jade discussion in a more scholarly manner, focusing on the jade carving itself and with evidence and references to back up your statements instead of bold statements, may be this way we would have more intelligent jade discussions that may be beneficial to all of us. I hope you would agree with my sentiments.
Bill
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- Bill - Apr 01, 2008 (11:29 AM) 
