Asian Arts | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries | Message Board

I have this piece I picked up in china several years ago. White Jade
Does anyone know what it is worth?
Did the scratcth test,Did not scratch, did the cheek test, is cold to the feel, does not warm up quikly
Thanks

Jim

Hi, Jim:

I believe your jade figurine is a "Guan Yin with one thousand hands" (ǧ�ֹ���). Guan Yin is a Chinese Goddess originated from India. It was male at first but was transformed into female in the Song dynasty and many related legends were created for her. Your goddess has only six hands. On the two regular hands, the right palm holds a disk with the Chinese character "Yue" which means moon and the left palm holds a similar disk with the character "Ri" (sounds like Yi or Yat) which means Sun. It will be nice if you can provide its size and its weight. It seems to be made in pretty good workmanship. I do not know if you have a way to test for its density. If it is really made of white nephrite and weighs a ton, that just the material cost alone may be worth quite a lot. Of course, there are a lot of lesser white nephrite materials readily available in China. Please provide me with its size, weight and density (if possible), thank you.

Bill

Bill

I have tried to scratch it with Scissors and it does not scatch I have a piece of cystal that I rubbed across the bottom I would say it mard it not scratched it. It wieghs 8.5 pounds and is 12" High about 7" across the arms it says Bhudda in chinese on the back.

Dear Jim

Look at the front, this stone look like alabaster, but look at the back, it looks like white nephrite. If it can not be scratched by scissors, and crystal...I have no idea what kind of stone it is. Nephrite can be scratched and leave any marks by crystal.

As for the workmanship,this bodhisattva of compassion, Guan Yin and the Thousand Arms is new..the torso is too long, the palms are too big, and thick, especially, the right one on the chest doing Abhaya Mudra (in Sanskrit means fearlessness), the lotus pedals are wrong (not Ming, not Qing), the robe looks like Mandalay Buddha Images. And no Amitabha Buddha in the hair above the forehead, or any sign of him on the figure, no accessories of any kind but the bracelets, overall picture is not in the good proportion.

If it is white nephrite, it would worth a lot.

from 50-200$ in my opinion...nice for decoration.

I'd say about $100-$200.

Asian Arts | Associations | Articles | Exhibitions | Galleries | Message Board