Asian Art Forums - Detail List

Asian Art Forums

Group: Message Board

Mystery nephrite jade carving

Posted By: Mircea Veleanu
Posted Date: Jan 30, 2009 (05:11 PM)

Message
Ni hao Randy Lee,

You have for viewing in an additional posting, a few close ups of the V-shape sonorous jade. The dimensions are: 7 X 6 cm. and the thickness is 0.2 cm. at the edge. Both sides are identical and does not make sense to be repetitive. Thank you for volunteering your help, graciously I decline your offer as already I know the answers and I posted the quiz only for learning process of the viewers and not for myself. Purposely, I have chosen jade carvings that have a provenance, in other words, we know what they are, their identity and their vetting was done by real experts and not persons that have no credentials to identify and attribute a jade carving. You claim that it might have been as an abstract form of Qing. I don't know what you meant by using the adjective "abstract" to this jade carving, but I assure you that this is not an abstract object. Continuing on, you state:

"I actually see some mild alterations on the surface that could be tiny raised crystals in the picture."

For bettering of your knowledge, there is no "raised crystal" phenomenon in ancient or archaic jade and never was. This term is an aberration of science and completely distortion of visible changes on ancient and archaic jade and created for the only goal to promote selling of physically altered carvings as genuine archaic jade. What is described as "raised crystals" are actually deposits of sedimentary organic material on the surface of the jade. This organic material is a result of chemical reaction at the jade surface and certainly the Chinese guy who invented this term, does not know what the word crystal means. Occasionally, the raised deposits on the jade surface are combined with calcination and erosion that is a phenomenon below the jade surface. From thousands and thousands of archaic and ancient jade carvings I examined, certainly I can state that I never have seen a jade carving with "raised crystals" and I don't have any of such specimen in my collection. All the stones that I saw on Internet (please note that I don't specify jade) that display so called micro-crystallization, were physically altered, in other words, are truly fakes. If you want to keep yourself a good name as knowledgeable in Asian arts, then you should restrain of using the word "raised crystals" as this DOES NOT EXIST!.
I appreciate your honesty in declaring that you did not read books "for quite a while". A true scholar needs to read continuously in order to keep up with the new discoveries and myself as a scholar, I declare with humble feelings that more I know, I realize how little I know. I wrote 4 reference books treating the Asian antiques and for each book, I dedicated enormous amount in research of anything written about the subject. Most of the old information is now obsolete, attribution of a specific antique to a specific period is a tremendous task, always subject to error. You claim that you saw V-shape sonorous jade, but you don't recall where. The only Chinese reference book in modern times treating jade carvings as part of the Chinese antiques in general, is the book of Wu Da Cheng who was a high ranking officer in the Chinese imperial army during the reign of emperor Guang Hsu ( see as reference the book "Jade, 5000 BC to 1912 AD", page 5 on Introduction chapter.) This book was printed in Chinese in 1889 and never translated in any Western language. The jade drawings were hand drawn and no photographs were provided. This book is extremely rare, was not reprinted and if you saw the Qing drawing in this book, then you are a lucky person (without hesitation, I offer you $5000 for this book). To my best knowledge, my book on jade is the only Western world book that published photos and description of V-shape sonorous jade. For your reference, see in the book cited as above, 4 photos of V-shape sonorous jade on page 61, Shang period chapter and in addition, 3 sets of sonorous jade on page 274, chapter 23, jade musical instruments. If you want to be known as a teacher and literate, I advise you that in the future, you might use caution of making statements in absence of evidence to back your statements.
Zai jian Randy Lee lao shi!

Post a Response

Responses:

Mystery nephrite jade carving - wingchuntaiji - Feb 02, 2009 (01:51 AM)