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Subject:Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: pipane Sat, Feb 06, 2016 IP: 114.111.166.65

...



Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: Super Sun, Feb 07, 2016

What exactly is this? How big?

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: Ernest Wilhelm Sun, Feb 07, 2016

That sure looks like Russian Jade - Nephrite

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: Ernest Wilhelm Tue, Feb 09, 2016

The traditional jade of China was nephrite jade. There have been a number of fake Jade ... Manchurian Jade "Manchurian jade" is just soapstone, not true jade.

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: pipane Wed, Feb 10, 2016

Hello Ernest,

You are confused: no soapstone mine in manchouria (none that I have heard about).Where have you heard that "manchourian jade" could be soapstone since "manchourian jade" is a word I made up to point out that this particular mineral was from manchouria?

Many types of minerals from manchouria are called "jade": xiuyan jade, biyu jade, etc...none of them is soapstone of course.

And you are mistaking modern and ancient jade, and jade and jade !!!

There is No fake jade, jade is jade, or is not jade period. There different types of jade good and bad jade. let me explain:

You are confused because "jade" is a generic term that stands for many different types of minerals... from nephrite to calcedonie, jadeite, etc... some even call soaptone "jade" (shoushan shi). But how can you mistake calcedonie for soapstone ? Hardness and aspect is quite different, mine location is different too.

True, for common people jade stands usually for nephrite or jadeite, but not in China, at least not for jade specialists and not in "chinese tradition" as you mentioned.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade

Wikipedia is far from being exhaustive on the subject...but it is a good introduction.

Even before starting to talk about antiquities we should at least agree on few basics of geology i. e minerals classification.

Manchouria is very large area 4,542,000 km2 and the diversity of minerals found there is considerable.

What is unique to chinese culture is the continuity in the use of jade from neolthic period to modern times, from then until now chinese people cherish beautiful stones (aka "jade"), so beautiful stones are "jade", in Chinese history many indifferent minerals from different areas were famous and widely appreciated for their beauty, most of them called "jade" (yu 玉).
The most famous and expensive one (up to modern days) is "mutton fat" white nephrite from Hetian in Xinjiang province (starting from bronze age), much later (Qing dynasty) green jadeite started to be very popular too, it is another type of jade (foreigner usually refers to green jadeite when they refer to "jade").

When you talk about traditional jade in China you are confused too, there was many types of minerals that were praised as beautiful "jade" in Chinese history, white nephrite from hotan (hetian) in Xinjiang is only one of them, the most famous but not the only one, jadeite is another one but what about Kunlun jade ? Tianhuang jade (a sub categorie of shoushan jade)? xiuyan jade, biyu jade ...etc ?

http://www.gemstone.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=121:sapphire&catid=1:gem-by-gem&Itemid=14

It gets confusing because chinese did not classify jade as we do in modern mineralogy, instead they use to classify jade by colors or mining location, ex. black jade (墨玉 moyu), white jade from hotan (和田白玉hetian baiyu),lower categories of white jade (清白玉qingbaiyu), green jade (qingyu 清玉),deep green jade (biyu), yellow jade (黄玉huangyu),light green jade (xiuyan yu 岫岩玉),red jade (nanhong 南红 red agate),tianlan jade (天蓝玉), white marble (hanbaiyu 汉白玉)... pure green jadeite (绿翡翠) etc...to mention a few.

Hope this helps to clarify the vast subjet of chinese jade。

best regards
P.

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: Super Sat, Feb 13, 2016

It was indeed curious why pipane would spell Manchuria as manchouria (with an extra o) and what his understanding of where manchouria is before he could even say what jade could be mined or not mined in manchouria.

What exactly is jade? We can argue all day long because would we use the western definition of jade (nephrite and jadeite) or the Chinese definition of jade (a stone that is beautiful and that has the five virtues of a gentleman) to define jade? If pipane uses the more strict Chinese definition for jade (has 5 virtues of a gentleman), that only the Hetain nephrite jade can be qualified to be called jade because it is the only jade that would consist of all five virtues. If he uses the more loose definition, any stone that is beautiful, then indeed any stones can be called jade, included many of the HS jade pieces with a lot of impurities and mixed colors that were posted by him here. I would call then ugly while he called them beautiful.

In short, we can argue all day long, but it is almost like arguing whether the Chinese are reading backward or the westerners are reading backward since the Chinese books starts in a different direction than that of western books. Who is right?

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: pipane Mon, Feb 08, 2016

Good point, very close, manchourian nephrite...


Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: Ernest Wilhelm Thu, Feb 11, 2016

Identifying Fake Jades - Molly Kalafut

http://molly.kalafut.org/jade/fake.html
Identifying and avoiding buying "fake" jade. ... Manchurian Jade. "Manchurian jade" is just soapstone, not true jade. Marble Jade. "Marble jade" or "Jade marble " ...

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: pipane Sat, Feb 13, 2016

Ah ah ah.

That is my point Ernest, you are talking about modern jade market, not jade in Chinese tradition.

Would you dismiss all neolithic period jade to be jade then? liangzhu Culture, hongshan culture, qijia culture, etc... because they are not made of nephrite nor jadeite ?

That is question of point of view but it would revolution jade appraisal and Chinese jade Culture.

What about this world famous non-jade jade item from national museum collection, Han dynasty, not jade ? You should write to that museum to tell them.

Best regards,
P.



Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: pipane Sat, Feb 13, 2016

Hello Ernest,

Thank you for your reply, interesting website, I checked it for you, but it doesn't clear up the confusion screen I am talking about.

It is a question of point of view, I understand your point of view but my point of view is the Chinese one as in Chinese History and Chinese Culture. As a reminder this forum is dedicated to Asian art and antiquities...not wholesale of modern jadeite souvenirs or Canadian nephrite.

On that website classification and point of view is the one of modern jade and the foreigner approach.

For instance they promote canadian nephrite as well Xinjiang nephrite without distinction, in China both are "jade" but the second one is the "real" jade while the first one, the canadian nephrite, is not "good jade" (a kind of "fake" jade ;) yes in China that type of jade is close to garbage ! althrougt there is a market for it). It is very cheap material by comparison.


It has a different name in chinese terminology, canadian nephrite color doesn't appeal to Chinese public. Buying canadian nephrite instead of Xinjiang jade would really be a loosing face issue here.

At the opposite, on that same website, they dismiss many minerals from being "jade" or even worst explaining that it is "fake jade" for the same reason, but those are indefinitely called "jade" in China, jade in Chinese culture is defined as "beautiful stone" not as a particular Mineral, it is not me who made this up, it is how it is, and good luck to anyone trying to teach 1.4 billIon chinese that what they called jade for millenniums is afterall not jade, it is a nonsense.

It not "fake jade" it just not "Hetian jade", jade is a generic term not a particular mineral. If you find it confusing that's normal it is even more when you really get into the detail of it...


Regatds,
P.

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: Ernest Wilhelm Sun, Feb 14, 2016

that type of jade is close to garbage ......
hmmmm, you obviously missed handling or seeing Polar Jade, which came from Northern Canada. In its purest form absolutely mouth watering. Few people had the good fortune to see it close up. Now only the odd low grade piece is available

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: pipane Mon, Feb 15, 2016

Yes, my apologies Ernest, my words were a little bit exaggerated...

Chinese terminology for that type of jade is Biyu (碧玉) Xinjiang/ Russia/ canada/ Manchuria origin. Good quality one can Indeed be beautiful.

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: Ernest Wilhelm Mon, Feb 15, 2016





you seem to be upset about something. perhaps you do not understand that some "foreigners" spend most of their years studying Jade and other hard stones. Many of the libraries in America and Europe have outstanding collections of books about Jade etc.
Anyone who has an interest in studying has access to those great libraries.
Having been many times in Asia, I did not find the same opportunities for the "local" people.
Best wishes
Foreigner
Ernest Wilhelm
PS many Chinese came to Canada and the US to find good Jade collections, which "amateurs" had collected



Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: pipane Wed, Feb 17, 2016

Hi Ernest, Not upset, having fun...

I am sorry if I upset you, I have bad character and use sarcasm much too frequently. it is very bad of me. Also english is not my mother tongue, sometimes words I use is not exactly what I intended to say.

You missed the rule number 1 about Chinese Culture: you are not Chinese therefore no matter how hard you try you will never get it (It's a joke cool down, beside I am not Chinese myself).

Books ..mm...nice but not close enough.

Books are good, but does anyone have ever learned surf/sky from reading books, it helps but frankly I know illiterate people who know more than me just by being on the field.

It is the same thing here, take precious stones for instance (a field pretty close to our subject), read all the books you want, even go to museum and jewelry stores see some, you will still be an amateur when it comes to pick good stones, separate the heated ones from the natural ones, differentiate the good grenat from ruby, Beryl from sapphire etc... there is so much more than can not be learn that way.

As for your experience "having hold yourself many antique jades" as you said earlier, I guess not and your posts proofs it. I don't say it to be mean, it's like this. First you misjudged me and more importantly people I work with, famous collectors and dealer, reference book autors and auction house experts. Then you make "light" appreciation about thing you don't know.

As for my Shang bird, I invite you to send those pics to Sotheby's for evaluation, you might learn something (they might call you back the very same day).

I am not saying you don't know anything about modern jadeite, or even nephrite, I am just saying that beside being able to spot most common fakes you don't have a clue when it comes to antiquities and I have seen you trash real antiquities in this forum (I am not talking about me, I don't care, I am not here to look for expertise or customers, at least not in jade, I have all expertise I need around me).

As for Chinese jade, people in this business differentiate 3 very distinctive fields, new jades (modern to Ming), old jades (antiques from yuan to Han) and archaic jades (before that), for neolithic jades it is arguably a fourth completly different domain of expertise...carving techniques are different, material too sometimes. Sincerely I doubt you had even an idear about those facts and any kind of experience passed the "new jade". In that sense you should be more cautious when giving your "expertise" to people on this forum, they need good advice, not misguiding opinions about their stuffs. It is easy to dismiss everything to be genuine/old since 95% of items posted here are crap, but it also wrong to give advice when you truly don't know.

I promise I will post a few quality jade (nephrite and jadeite) for you here in the futur, but I can't post too much, it is contrary to antique dealers habits, generally buyers don't want their acquisition to be public.

Best regards,
P.








Subject:Please DO NOT tell me you understand Chinese culture
Posted By: Super Thu, Feb 18, 2016

I probably should have kept my mouth shut but I just could not see a Gweilo who kept running his mouth here saying hogwash like:

"You missed the rule number 1 about Chinese Culture: you are not Chinese therefore no matter how hard you try you will never get it."

I am Chinese and I surely could not get it either and I hate to say, you are really not that funny, may be only to yourself.

How dare you said "but my point of view is the Chinese one as in Chinese History and Chinese Culture", that was the most arrogant and egotistic statement I had ever read. No real Chines will ever make such an arrogant statement.

That reminded me when I was attending a Catholic secondary school (form 1 - form 7) in Hong Kong a while ago, an Italian Marist brother who loved to say mass to us at least once a week, not in Italian, not in English, not in Latin but in Cantonese, unfortunately his Cantonese was no better than your understanding of either the Chinese culture or Chinese jade. We had to suffer for a whole hour at least once a week, standing there (not enough seats for the whole school) and listened to his mumble jumble without understanding a word he said. He smiled and had a lot of fun just like we had to endure your nonsense while you had a lot of fun at our expenses.

Just because you had lived in China or Hong Kong for a few years, went to some museums or jade shops, talked to some jade collectors and pretended to be a Hongshan jade expert, did not qualify you to be an expert in either jade or Chinese culture.

You kept talking about jade in "Chinese tradition", which Chinese tradition? Before the mid Qing dynasty, jadeite was not considered as "real jade". So if we have a Qing dynasty jadeite piece, would you call it "fake jade" then?
Have you ever asked what average Chinese think jade are? Hetain nephrite jade? You must be kidding, I guarantee you 99 out of 100 Chinese people would tell you real jade is jadeite or anything that is green. How often did you see Chinese wear white jade, Hetian or not?

Your statement"
Books are good, but does anyone have ever learned surf/sky from reading books, it helps but frankly I know illiterate people who know more than me just by being on the field."
that speaks loud and clear about your ignorance and wrong attitude toward the study of jade.
Yes, to be a surgeon, one does need to practice and do real surgery, but before one can be a real surgeon, one still need to go to an accredited medical school and study medical books and learn all the basics, otherwise, you would only be a barber surgeon like long time ago in England (even some of those barber surgeons did have text books). For any one just to base his own observations and experience obtained from studying jade and believed he/she knew everything about jade without believing he/she ever needs to read any jade books written by respected jade experts, to me is like a frog looks at the sky at the bottom of a well and says it knows everything about the sky. How funny!

Sadly, most the jade experts and scholars on Chinese jades around early Republic and before ROC were mostly westerners, many of whom spending their life time in China, studying jade and published their life time findings in valuable jade books. For you to believe "foreigners" knew nothing about Chinese jade, was really a big slap to all of their contributions and again shows your total ignorance and egotistic attitude.

Had you ever read or owned any jade books written by:
Dr. S. Howard Hansford
Stanley Charles Nott (Chinese Jade throughout the Ages)
Richard Gump
Do you know who Boda Yang is?

How much money had you spent on the purchase of serious jade books before you posted all of your statements regarding Chinese jade here?
Do you know the five virtues of a Chinese gentlemen? Do you know why they are important?
How many years had you spent in the study of Chinese history, culture and literature for you to become such an expert in the Chinese culture?
Can you read Chinese? If you cannot, how in the world did you obtain your expertise on Chinese culture or Chines jade to know the real Chines tradition on jade? From internet? From just living in China?

For you to say such garbage (yes rubbish) like this to Ernest:
" the canadian nephrite, is not "good jade" (a kind of "fake" jade ;"
and "As for my Shang bird, I invite you to send those pics to Sotheby's for evaluation, you might learn something (they might call you back the very same day)."
is really disturbing. Do you know WHY?
Because no Chinese would ever act so arrogantly like you did, and the more they know about anything the more humble they would become.

I once knew a renown jade expert who was invited by Sotheby's to study the 7M (US$) Emperor Qianlong's archer ring collection, whenever I asked him to evaluate some of my jades, he said he would have troubles in even authenticating anything in person, therefore there was simply no way for him to appraise anything in low resolution pictures. When I asked him if he ever handled any Chinese archaic jades (to us that was Han dynasty or earlier), he said out of his whole dealing with jades, he only saw four pieces, with one he knew for sure, and other three that were questionable. Yet for you who appeared to have no troubles in obtaining Shang dynasty jade bird or authentic Hongshan jades, wow, you must be indeed very very LUCKY or all of these Chinese must really really love you.

That reminds me a while ago, there was a OB doctor (physician) who came to this forum to promote his fake Hongshan jades without even understanding even the basics of jade, posting in his site a large Hongshan piece he claimed that was made of yellow nephrite jade without knowing it was made of serpentine. He said there was no nephrite jade in Taiwan? What do you think?

You did appear to know more about jade than this doctor who was sued by his clients in a New York court for selling fake jadeite jewelry. I hope you would be more careful than him because some of those so called Hongshan jades that were posted by you previously in this forum, material of some of them were simply so horrific that they should only be sold on eBay. You have to excuse me for saying that because for somebody who claimed he truly understands what real jade is, how in the world would he believe any jade so ugly, did not contain any of the five virtues of a gentlemen can be authentic HS jades?

You claimed you understand Chinese culture, but I do not believe you do because you surely missed some of the most important aspects in the Chinese culture:

Be humble, while you may believe you know a lot about any subjects, you really cannot know everything and there are a lot of people who know much more than you. To be so arrogant is simply uncalled for. Also, to make others to lose face was simply foolish because you may believe you had won but you had actually lost.

Lastly, please forgive me for being blunt, I have to admit that I do live in the USA for too long and did pick up some bad habits of being blunt. But please please do not ever tell others that they did not understand Chinese culture because it is like

五十步笑百步
(one who retreats fifty steps mocks those who retreat a hundred steps)
or a pot calling the kettle black.

Lastly, please accept my sincere apology if any of my words might have inadvertently offended you and that was not my intention. Cheer.

Super

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: Silas MacGregor Thu, Mar 03, 2016

"Having been many times in Asia, I did not find the same opportunities for the "local" people...many Chinese came to Canada and the US to find good Jade collections, which "amateurs" had collected"

Many of those "amateurs" assembled top-quality collections only thanks to "local" dealers, and Chinese dealers in Europe, London, etc. Without such advice, those amateurs would have been $itting duck$.

While "local" Chinese may not have the same opportunities to study publications about jade, the Chinese culture is imbued with the jade aesthetic. Jade is not an outside thing, so much as the physical embodiment of cultural values. Compare the Western obsession with shiny, cut stones such as diamonds, with the Asian obsession with softly-polished translucency.

Chinese grow up with the stuff naturally. It is not something they study-up on as adults. That makes all the difference in the world.

Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: pipane Tue, Sep 20, 2016

Thanks Silas you get my point right.

@super beside your childish personal attack (lack of sense of humor I guess) you are wrong all along, but good luck anyway.

You lack the humility to study from a real (jedi) master (of the galaxy). Padawan, let me tell you : I have the feeling that you are from the dark side of the force. You're confused and you're lost. Turning around the subject but never getting it. This thing is like black and white, you know for sure or you don't and you know from (successful) experience and good teaching (not from guessing). It is that simple, All is simple!






Subject:Re: Hs jade anyone ?
Posted By: Michael O Thu, Sep 22, 2016

Pipane, it is not surprising that you choose such a childish and arrogant way to respond. A jedi master indeed. A master without serious scholarship or credentials is usually a false master, who cloaks his own lack of knowledge by declaring that he is the only master who can tell black from white, as if everyone else is color blind.

I am doubtful about those pieces you post in the first picture here and the 2nd picture seems to be taken from some other site, without properly crediting the owner of the picture. This either shows a lack of discipline or a lack of ethics. Or both.


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