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Subject:Re: Can this object be considered as archaic?
Posted By: Super Sun, Apr 08, 2018
Hi, Richard:
Thank you for sharing this piece with us and I saw that you posted it again in a later thread.
The pictures you took look quite professional and almost look like they came from a jade book. (No pun intended, meant as compliment.) To try to render opinions on any jade prices based solely on low resolution pictures without examining them in person, to me, is like asking for troubles.
This piece appears to be a large "Neolithic" style piece. Most large jade carvings in ancient China were used for "worship" or for some kinds of rituals/ceremonies. Example, congs used in the Liangzhu culture. Therefore, they were both expensive and difficult to make (since no metal tools were available in Neolithic time), and are therefore very rare. Even in the Hongshan culture, large jade pieces are very rare and most of them did not have evacuation records, such as those few pieces of well known large C dragons. Since it would require years of working on any jade carvings during Neolithic time and the Hongshan people were basically Nomadic people who migrated from one place to another, therefore they were very selective in choosing material in making their jade carvings and large pieces were rare. Therefore, most of the known large Hongshan C dragons, though could not be authenticated by documented excavations, yet most of them were made of a type of bai yu 碧玉 (dark green nephrite jade)similar to those from the Manasa River and this type of jade material was recognized by Chines Hongshan jade authority as one of the authentic Hongshan jade material. Therefore, for any secondary Neolithic or archaic "jade" pieces one of the better way to attempt to authenticate them is by comparing their material with those of excavated pieces. Sometime that is easier said than done. As a matter of fact, even the National Palace Museum in Taiwan had once exhibited fake Hongshan jades and one large auction company in China spent thousands of dollars in the purchase of a large Hongshan piece. About a decade ago, one of the richest oil guru in Texas, USA, spent millions of dollars in acquiring a large Hongshan jade collection, only found out most of them were fakes. Therefore, there are probably thousands of Hongshan fakes including large ones out there, some might have sold to Japanese collectors. IMHO, almost 99.9999% of many large Neolithic jade piece are fakes and even a very few of them may be genuine, it would be almost impossible to authenticate them because even known Hongshan/Neolithic jade experts in China disagreed with each other. So called authentic Neolithic jade carvings in some smaller museums in China, IMHO, can only be taken with a grain of salt.
This large piece here appears to be made with dark green material and then changed to "chicken bone white" by either treating with chemical (e.g. acid) or burning. You can smell it and see if there is any chemical scent. Its weathering (or degradation) appears to be created by chemical or other artificial means (like hitting or scratching with metal tools). In the left bottom picture, one can see a lot of scratches made by modern tools on the right side of its large bottom hole. Polishing of any Neolithic jade carvings were made by years of hand polishing, to have all these scratches were simply absurd and such large jade carvings, will be well preserved and well protected. But the most telltale sign, to me, is its material. While there is a slight possibility that it was made of nephrite, I believe for such a big piece, (The objet mesures 14 x 10 cm and weight 330 grs. in your second message), it is more than likely made of cheap serpentine and you should be able to confirm by doing a specific gravity (density) test or by doing a scratch test.
Also, I once spend a few hundred dollar in the purchase of a small chick-bone-white Honshan pig dragon that looks very authentic to me (at that time), only after polishing it with a lot of vaseline (petroleum jelly), all its chicken bone white covering disappeared and from specific gravity test, it was made of serpentine, unlike the beautiful jade material of authentic Hongshan carvings. I did regret getting rid of its chicken bone covering despite it was fake, because now the piece looks just like any average Hongshan style piece. Well, at least I learned something. I hope.
Again, thanks for sharing with us. Please understand that your piece can indeed be archaic and I can indeed be wrong but its material just contradicts its being a Neolithic piece. No disrespect intended. Please do consider post your other jade pieces. I hope others will express their opinions. To me, there is no right or wrong opinions.
Super
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- Richard - Apr 06, 2018 (11:45 AM) 
