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Subject:Hongshan jade ?
Posted By: pipane Fri, Dec 25, 2015 IP: 114.111.167.112

Wild guess...?







Subject:Re: Hongshan jade ?
Posted By: Super Sun, Dec 27, 2015

I do believe you know more about Hongshan jade than a lot of jade collectors and probably more than me especially after reading some of your recent comments regarding some of the so called Hongshan pieces. You are right on the money on most of them. You also have the advantage over me in that you have the great opportunities in visiting a lot of museums and other jade places in China and therefore would have better opportunities to see better Hongshan or Hongshan style pieces than me.

However, after spending some time in the attempt of collecting Hongshan jades, including sharing with some very serious Hongshan jade collectors who had spent a fortune on their "Honshan" jade pieces, I feel that in order to obtain a piece of indisputable genuine Hongshan piece may be just a pipe dream and a very expensive/risky task. I am not even sure the Hongshan culture is even real or just a term created by somebody because nobody really knows how big the Hongshan area is and who the Hongshan people exactly are. The complete culture just like all other recently discovered cultures (such as Liangzhu) appeared to extinct long time ago. There was no written language of the so called Hongshan people and therefore no history could be traced back to their origin and end. We cannot even agree in the exact number of genuine Hongshan jade pieces that existed today.

That said, I am having a lot of troubles in calling your "cicada" piece here "Hongshan" and these are my reasons:

(1) To me your cicada, even if it was old, is quite ugly.(Sorry) It was not made of any credible Hongshan material and at best was made of readily available xi yu (serpentine or bowenite). It may also be stained. In short, the quality of the material itself disqualify this one from being considered as Hongshan,IMHO.

(2) It was totally DEAD, there is no luster on its surface and no Hongshan spirit can be found on it. (Again, sorry).

Of course, since I am neither a jade expert or a Hongshan jade expert, therefore I can be dead wrong and want to apologize in advance. If you can share the reasons you believe this may be a Hongshan piece, I would be gladly to learn from you. Thanks in advance. Super


Subject:Re: Hongshan jade ?
Posted By: pipane Sat, Jan 09, 2016

Hi super sun, you're partialy right, let's call it Hs stone...

I would like to point out that contrary to common belief Hs jades are not all made of high quality jade nor beautifully carved (although I believe this one as some esthetic value). Far from it, after all we're talking about neolithic age here, this belief comes from the fact that beside scholars books many books on HS jade have only selection of beautiful pieces made of high grade jade.

As for this particular piece, it is made of soft material largely used in HS culture (meijingshi), it has been publish in a reference HS book some ten years ago, IBSN 978-710204567-2 p.243 so I would definitely rule it as HS artefact.

Subject:Re: Hongshan jade ?
Posted By: pipane Sat, Jan 09, 2016

More pics







Subject:Re: Hongshan jade ?
Posted By: Super Mon, Jan 18, 2016

Hi, pipane:

Thank you for sharing that with us. It is quite possible that the cicada piece you posted could indeed be an authentic piece and it is also true like you said not all authentic HS pieces were made of real jade (i.e. nephrite)and some of them could indeed be made of xi yu (or xi yang jade or so called bowenite). The frustrating part is on many Hongshan reference books especially those that documented excavated pieces never disclosed what type of material the pieces were made of, only called them yellow jade or celadon jade, etc. The problem is some time with some of these so called authentic Hongshan pieces, on some of these reference books, even on those published by some of the Chinese museums, can only be taken with a grain of salt because the documentation of many "authentic" pieces were some time not as good as they should be. As a matter of fact, according to my memory, none of the authentic large C dragons were documented as being excavated. It is for that reason, it would be extremely risky and almost impossible to accurately attribute any authentic HS pieces, even by HS experts. As a matter of fact, even the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, a while ago, had not only acquired but display some "fake" Hongshan pieces because they believed they were authentic. It appears to me their experts would know a lot more about HS pieces than most of us. It is for that reason, I do not have any confidence in risking my money in buying any "authentic" HS pieces especially those that were made of lesser material. Super

Subject:Re: Hongshan jade ?
Posted By: pipane Tue, Jan 26, 2016

Please you to see what you wish...

May I ask what experience you have in collecting ancient jade and archaic jades from north China in particular ? Just curious..

Regards,
P.



Subject:Re: Hongshan jade ?
Posted By: pipane Tue, Jan 26, 2016

Cheers...




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