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Mentioned a few months ago I was selling off some cheaper jades from my family collection. The first piece I mentioned is now in the christies catalogue SALE 8791 MAY 15th (Chinese interiors) LOT number 828... It is catalogued as a "Yuan dynasty mottled and dark brown jade circular plaque", but since entering it, several experts have suggested a Song-Jin dating (Its a Song dynasty motif and the material used is typically Song-Jin)The estimate is £1200-1500 but I have put the reserve low to encourage early bidding...We also allowed a retailer friend to offer it for sale on his site for a few months and he was retail valuing it at £4500! So the Christies price is cheap for a heavy piece of nicely carved jade from over 700 years ago!!
I will keep board members posted about my lesser value ming and qing pieces as we decide to sell (We are keeping only our qing-qianlong xioushengyu collection complete with a view to exhibiting the collection in a reputable national museum)As most are currently in storage (due to security)where even WE cant enjoy their beauty!!
I have popped in a photo ,see below

Best of Luck!

Thank you for your kind sentiments Mr Wong. I hope it reaches its true value!!

Using the zoom feature to view the piece on the Christie's site reveals some clumsy and poorly rendered designs made with a power-tool. These are most apparent in the lower center right and in the upper center left. In my opinion, the carving is not consistant with the dates and dynasty represented.

Good luck.

Roger

Sure!!! I suspect this is a case of "fake until they own it" I would love to know how power tools were used when it was brought into the U.k prior to the 1900's!!!

I agree with Roger here; electric tool mark slippages are evident all over this piece. Adam, can you prove that the piece was collected before 1900? Do you realize that everybody trying to give meaning to their item has a similar: "My grandfather, uncle, cousin was a businessman, teacher, diplomat, missionary in China etc. ..." or "My family blah, blah, blah..."

The auction houses have proven themselves to be completely negligent in ascertaining provenance for these relatively low-priced items that pass without any scrutiny. It's purely an attempt to cash in on Chinese new money that is for the most part coming from an unsophisticated buyer,most likely a peasant a few years or even months ago.

You may well have had collectors in your family for three generations but that doesn't authenticate the piece. Certain families, including high nobility and royal families, have had pieces in their collections for much more than three generations that have proven to be forgeries or poor choices that never increased in value, be it monetary or artistic.

Aside from the obvious modern tool marks, full of slippages sharp edges and sharp v-shaped incised lines, the piece has also been stained in a crude attempt to imitate white Hetian jade with brown inclusions, a favorite of knowledgeable collectors.

Well, that certainly is a mystery! It doesn't appear that the vague provenance will reveal any clues either.

I inspected the piece via christies zoom and would like to make a couple of point
1) The christies zoom image does not provide sufficient zoom for toolmark/grit analysis (I think you have deeply misunderstood the term) When experts talk about tool marks they really are referring to the abrasive grain pattern and type, which gives clues on the way it was carved and the speed of the tools rotation)Even the Zhou dynasty were using small rotating tuo wheels (Maybe brush up on jade carving history).
2) the only area I can see any marks like you are referring to are actually deliberate decorative marks about 10,000 times too large to be considered tool marks.
I have inspected this and all my families jades (with the aid of a top museums asian curator) up to 500X magnification(not the 5x christies zoom!!) and this piece shows absolutely textbook song-ming tool methods, grit types and techniques...Even to the point of the published curator taking images for teaching purposes...It also has natural surface wear and degradation that is simply unfakable!!
It is hard enough to spot relevant tool/grit patterns with 500X zoom...I Find above the comments laughable... Shows the ignorance of some self styled experts...
Would love to see your jades Roger!!

Your statement, "Shows the ignorance of some self styled experts..." is very appropriate! We have seen it proven true in jade, porcelain, bronze, wood and every other item that comes before the forum.

My collection, by the way, does not include souvenir items from the sidewalk vendors in Taiwan so I doubt that they would be of interest to you.

I do hope that the proceeds of the sale will provide the financial assistance you need for your travel to Australia.

500 times magnification would be overkill when electric tool marks are visible with the naked eye. A 10x jeweler's glass would be enough.

Neither you, the curator or me are technically proficient enough in microscopy to comment on topics like "grit analysis." You are making claims here that are way beyond you and any topics for casual forums. You are trying to silence us with technical jargon. It is no news that rotating drills were used in ancient days, way before Zhou Adam. There is an obvious difference with hand drills and electric and no amount of technical jargon can hide it from the naked eye of anyone who has looked at a lot of jade closely and in person.

It is time you set aside this story of your family etc. as it isn't going to authenticate the things. There is also the issue of what is very likely staining to replicate brown inclusions. I've tried to put a link to a 16th.c plaque donated by Heber Bishop in 1902 to the Met. The problem is with zoom things get out of focus but at least with that piece there is documentation that it was collected early.

URL Title :Met 16th c. Plaque/ Bishop Coll.

Please let us in on the Australia comment Roger; is that an inside joke? Tourist stalls in China aren't the only places you can buy fakes, although you can get them a lot cheaper than you can from some of the high end dealers in the West! Maybe you should put a few pieces up here, if you are a collector, since you seem to think that where you buy your jades authenticates them.

I'm not sure where you got the impression that I "seem to think that where you buy your jades authenticates them", but your comment is cheeky and presumptious.

In addition to pieces brought to America by family members after the fall of Shanghai, Christie's, Sotheby's, Bonham have been the source of most purchases. In the past 70 years,I have purchased some very fine pieces from the Bayless, Kenyon, Wu, and Mdm. Chaing collections. I have found quality pieces in San Francisco, New York, London, and Singapore, but in 128 trips abroad in 30 years, I have found few reliable dealers.

My collection is private but may be viewed by invitation or recommendation with security clearance. I do not entertain casual visitors and nothing is for sale.

As for the Australia comment, please see the link below.

http://www.asianart.com/phpforum/index.php?method=detail&Id=67479

I apologize for the presumptuous tone. Provenance is not iron-clad if a piece comes from a well-known collector, or auction house. Since there is no dating for stone, you are still relying on subjective opinions.

Collectors can get into the trap of only buying forms, stone color, motifs that are known from older collections or museums. They use them as a standard, and this becomes some sort of business model.

Unless you have photographs or reliable testimony that a piece was excavated, or was in the Forbidden City or some other palace, then the provenance is just a story.

I've seen a few dubious archaic jades in museums and many more for sale from high end dealers and auctions. We're talking about one in this thread.

I don't think that a jade gains anything if it comes from a prestigious collection, dealer or auction house; they must simply be examined individually, on their own merits, by the collector. The decision must based on what the collectors knows and feels.

Adam,
Conratulations on the sale of your jade for
over $3,000. Well done!

The family who my grandfather bought this jade from (Well known family name in jade history) had possessed this jade from late 19th century...
Regarding tool marks- I think I will trust the ten year british museum study that shows exact chronology of jade toolmarks in high magnification-Not "Old wifes tales" about cut lines!!!There is no way of authenticating by cut-lines- The British Museum have published the study for any who care to look!!!
Also this piece was the only Calcified/chickenbone/grey piece that sold well on the day! Most other "Old" pieces failed to sell....I had two Chinese bidders and one in London who dropped out around $2000..
Shows what some people know.... Also JG a tuo disc (Used from warring states)is very different to a bow drill (Used from neolithic)(As i said suggest researching jade working history)

Cut lines ARE tool marks. If a well-known and long established collector like Roger is telling you the piece is bad, then you would have to presume that if these buyers show it to somebody other than the Christies' person who passed it, they could hear it's bad from them too.

May I remind you that you called the Met dragon that Michael posted an obvious fake and you expressed that opinion with zeal and confidence, even providing a garbled criticism of the form. You should remember that when you advise people to study and read more, something that you do quite regularly.

While we're at it, I will give you the far more practical advice to study basic punctuation and grammar. I'm not talking about a typo here and there; your writing is always a mess of errors of all kinds. I apologize if you aren't a native English speaker.

Hi Adam, congratulations on selling your plaque. The older the jade carving the less the use of the drill and more the string cut. There is a interesting article by the British Museum about jade tool working on a jade turtle excavated in India and the techniques used to carve it. The string cutting is commonly found on older jade early qing and older with the majority of work done by hand scraping with abrasives or by string cutting. Only the details hollowing out and indentations were done by wheel and drills. Apparently the cutting techniques earlier than Han were done not by metal tools but by wood tools so the the fine drilling detail created by metal drills e.g tubular drill marks are not present. Article on Han bear from the British Museum. The auctions in London were very heavily bided this time round with a lot of interest by mainland Chinese and almost every piece of jade were sold and some for many times their estimate. I manage to secure only one piece at the Chinese art sale at Christies South Kensington. It is a song- ming vase lot 1404 and fortunately there wasn't much interest on it due to it's condition and numerous inclusions.It reminds me of a Song jade vase with heavy inclusion excavated from a grave in Anhui displayed at the Anhui museum. Manage to secure it for 2500 pounds. I will post the detail of it's cut when I can. There are tubular drill marks along with string cut marks as well as wheel marks.

Lee- I looked at that vase, congratulations! I think the Song-Ming jades are highly undervalued at the moment-This is sure to change as the prices get pulled up by the topsellers.

Hi Adam, thanks, did you buy any pieces yourself? Ming and Song jade are still relatively cheap compared to their 18th century examples. This is because the Chinese collectors are concentrating on the intrinsic value of the stone and they like pure colors without inclusions. You seldom get genuine burial jade without some inclusions. The vast majority of Ming and older pieces would have gone through wars, house fires, burials and long term use for various reasons. Similarly to old porcelain they are seldom in perfect condition. You could bleach them in peroxide to get rid of some of the black inclusions much like what they do with porcelain, but I rather leave them in the original state. The other problem is to sort out the genuine ming and song pieces from the 19th century and early 20th century replicas. That is the harder thing to do as they are sometimes purposely aged by roasting them in fire. The only way to tell the difference else than the style is in the cut and tool marks.

The photos of the Song dynasty jade vase I said I will post. The jade vase in the book is from the tomb of the Zhou family excavated in Anhui province, it is dated to Song dynasty. It is supposed to be celadon grey in color with orange inclusion. Song jade vases typically are segmented.This jade vase has 3 segments rather than 2 segments the foot are similar in design. The vase has elephant heads a common song motif rather than lion heads. The jade vase has plenty of dark colored inclusion, rather than orange ones may be because it was buried with the owner rather than outside the coffin.

The tubular drill marks found on the inside of the very well hollowed vase . Also the roundels are cut with tubular drills. Very common feature of earlier jade vessels. String cut marks are found all over the vase but they are hard to photograph.

unpolished rough bits left under the base as the carver shows that the carver probably used a tubular drill to cut into the jade and than fractures the bit in the drill off by bending it side ways

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