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Re: An Authentic Tang dynasty or earlier dynasty Hongshan jade ax?

Posted By: gman
Posted Date: Jan 14, 2008 (03:40 PM)

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I found it humorous when one of the members began asking him why he was so taken by this piece, when his number one critiria which he always judges other pieces from, clear close up photos, were not included in his post.
And I was not surprized that he had a "do as I say, not as I do attitude".
I have a feeling that if you had posted the same photos without saying where they were from, he would have given you a hard time about it, but of course it was not necessary for him to identify the source as he was asked to do.

I think though that he may be correct that this axe is a missing link.
It may be the key to how many modern forgeries are made.

While the lemmings are oooooing and aahhhhing it as a masterpiece, I see many aspects that just look "off".

The zhulongs don't seem archaic or archaistic in style and are quite ugly.
The horizontal field with the script appears to be poorly laid out on one side, lopsided where the right side is lower than the left.
Also note that the V shaped point where the two horizontal fields meet is more or less centered on the hole. (see top photos)
The same V shaped point between the horizontal fields on the reverse side are well to the right of the center hole. (see bottom 2 photos)

I also find it odd that the script characters within the horizontal fields have well spaced margins at the top and bottom of the field, while the script characters within the vertical field have the correct margin spacing only on the inside, and the outside looks as though the margin was ground down all the way to the edge of the script.
This all seems out of place for the normally symetry conscious Chinese jade carvers.

I am also quite leery of the strong chemical looking discoloration around the script characters which appears to be inconsistant with the fields of the zhulongs.
Finally, look at the bottom photo showing the top edge of the axe, and compare that surface to the surfaces of the top edges above the horizontal fields on both sides, did they forget to add the weathering treatment to the top edge?

Why would someone would go to all of the trouble of forging something like this, and is it possible or practical to do so?
The answers are MONEY, MODERN TECHNOLOGY, and A MARKET OF WANNABE COLLECTORS WHO BUY ALLEDGED ARTIFACTS ONLINE AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER.
Just my uneducated $00.02 worth.

By the way, those videos were interesting, even if they were all in Chinese.

Cheers
Gmanm

PS, I am looking forward to seeing what Randy will say about this piece over in lemming-land.

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