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This is a very old tile an auction house stole from me about 7 years ago. My question is , is it jade of alabaster?
Did the Chinese use alabaster?
I am asking because I have a set of 8 screens, extrememly old painted on the same kind of material. A friend wants to purchase them, but if they are made of Jade they are worth quite a lot of money.
They are somewhat transclusant and have that raw, white jade feel to them.
Any help would be appreciated.
I will post more pics of the 8 screens soon.

It is definitely not jade because jade is not a good material for painting. It does not look like marble eventhough it was a popular material. The surface of marble or jade is not a good material to hold the painting. Etchings have to added to the marble surface in order to hold the paint.

Your pictures are too small and not clear enough to show the detail. The characters are up-side down also.

thanks so much for your response.
Unfortunately you can only upload images max 200px. pretty tiny for looking at details.
I could always email them.
So if its not marble and its not jade, then what the heck is it?

I did find one on line, sorta similar with some painting on jade.

http://www.aileenminor.com/inventory_details~item~553.cfm

Allana,
The image size can be up to 100kb, yours are only 68kb or less, and if you cropped the picture it could even be larger. Like this one which is only 52kb.

I think that it is probably soap stone.

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