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Subject:Zhulong + Apollo
Posted By: Super Mon, May 04, 2015
This appears to be a Hong Shan style jade figurine of combining the pig dragon (zulong) with the body of an apollo. If your scratch test result was indeed correct and based on its appearance, the material being nephrite is quite high. There lies the problem if it was indeed made of nephrite. First there are really not that many large Hongshan pieces being made of nephrite, or at least not material like this. Many large and famous C dragons were made of Manassa River bai yu (dark green nephrite jade) but none of them were being excavated. Without metal, it would be almost impossible to cut and obtain any large nephrite material (about 2 kg) to make this piece. It would take a long long time in "carving" such large raw nephrite jade. Secondly, most Hong Shan burial places were in high ground and therefore stayed very dry and nephrite material like this was very difficult to be corroded even in wet surroundings. The weathering found on this piece, are all on its surface and are too evenly spread, just like Ernest said, therefore are highly suspicious and most likely artificial. Most of the time when you see severe weathering on large Hongshan pieces are when they were made of softer stones (such as serpentine) of if there are cracks on nephrite pieces and such weathering would spread deeply into the crack.
Therefore, I believe the chance of this being a modern fantasy Hongshan piece is quite high. However without personally handling it, it would be difficult to say for sure. Its material does look pretty good and therefore it would be a very good study piece.
Would you mind sharing how you obtain this piece, the history behind it and how much you acquire it for? Thanks in advance.
Super
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Jade Figure? 
( China & Japan ) - Phil - Apr 29, 2015 (11:59 AM) 
