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Old serpentine - Xiu Yan jade

Posted By: Bill
Posted Date: Jul 22, 2009 (10:22 AM)

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Of course serpentine can be old. There is actually no evidence that nephrite jade was ever being mined inside China although we believe at one time nephrite mined locally were being used in the carving of both Liangzhu and Hongshan jades. Unfortunately, those nephrite sources are all now extinct and their existence cannot be proved with certainty.

Most nephrite jade used in making Chinese jade carvings were imported from Khotan, XinJiang, China or from the vicinty of Kunlun Mountain such as Qinghai. I know a few forum members would not agree with this. However, I simply based this conclusion from opinions of top jade experts in both China and the west.

Therefore, hetian jades were known to be used to make archaic jade carvings in China. There are other two known jade material that were also being used in the making of archaic jade carvings in China and they are: Xiuyan jade (or Xiu Yu) which is predominately serpentine and Dushan jade which is supposedly to be a type of feldspar (its hardness is 6.5-7 and its SG ranges from 2.5-3.0). However, the type of Xiuyan jade that were used in ancient China was quite differnt than the modern one. The older Xiuyan jade cannot be scratched, some have the dark green color of nephrite and one may mistaken it as nephrite until a S.G. test can be performed on them. Some are found in the making of Hongshan jade carvings with yellowish and light brown colors and was called as "Bowenite" by some jade collectors. Some Xiuyan jade is a mixture of both nephrite and serpentine. The modern Xiuyan jade is mostly light green and can be scratched. Their colors can be very similar to some celadon nephrite jade and therefore is very difficult to distinguish them from celadon nephrite jade based on digital pictures alone. Only a scratch test can tell the difference. Therefore, if you will perform a scratch test (with a needle) at the bottom of your bowls, you will be able to tell if they were made of serpentine or nephrite. There are some Xiuyan jades that were high quality tremolite (nephrite) that were used in making authentic Hongshan jade. The quality of them is so superb that one will not mistaken them with any other inferior jade material. They will have a S.G. close to or exceeds 3.00 and a hardness approaching 7.0 While it is true that in general jadeite will have a hardness of 7.0 and nephrite has a hardness of about 6.0 and therefore nephrite was known as "soft jade" in China. However, that was not always true because at one time, nice nephrite jade carvings owned by royals and nobles in China actually have hardness equal to or exceed that of jadeite. I also found it is not true that all jadeite will have a hardness of 7, some will actually have hardness around 6 - 6.5

I have seen similar jade bowls like yours for sales on eBay between $5 to $20. There used to be a lot of them but lately I have not seen too many.

As long as you enjoy your bowls, there will not be anything wrong with it. However, until you see those jade bowls listed on those jade books I have recommended, then you may change your mind and really want to own a nice and genuine nephrite jade bowl. At one time I had an opportunity to obtain one (made in the 20s) for less than $200 but I missed the opportunity. A perfect nephrite jade bowl is something not easy to obtain due to the amount of material and the difficulty in making them.

Good luck.

Bill

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