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Can anyone tell me how old this �Tian Lu� is?

I inherited several pieces of Chinese Art, including this jade Tian Lu; at least that is what some have told me it is called.

I think it is made out of jade and it is 13 cm wide, 8,5 cm high, 8 cm broad.

Sorry, modern, non-jade, and colour dipped.
Ernest

�Pixiu (Chinese: 貔貅; pinyin: p� xiū) originally known as Pi Xie (辟邪 to avoid evil spirits in Chinese) is a Chinese mythical creature. It resembles a winged lion. Pixiu is an earth and sea variation, particularly an influential and auspicious creature for wealth. It is said to have a voracious appetite towards only gold and silver. Therefore traditionally to the Chinese, Pixiu has always been regarded as an auspicious creature that possessed mystical power capable of drawing Cai Qi (財氣 wealth) from all directions. Thus, it is helpful for those who are going through a bad year according to Chinese zodiac.
There are two different types of Pi Xiu. The difference is with their horns. The one with two horns is known as Pi Ya (possibly a corruption from bi xie (辟邪)) and the one with one horn is called Tian Lu (天祿) (Pi Chen).
� Tian Lu (天祿) - is in charge of wealth. Displaying Tian Lu at home or in the office is said to prevent wealth from flowing away.
� Pi Ya - wards off evil. It is also believed that Pi Ya has the ability of assisting anyone who is suffering from bad Feng Shui that is due to having offended the Grand Duke Jupiter (also called as Tai Sui (太岁)).
Pi Xiu is the ninth offspring of the dragon. Pi Xiu craves the smell of gold and silver and it likes to bring his master money in his mouth. Statues of this creature are often used to attract wealth in feng shui.�
Since I cannot see if this mystical animal has horns or not, I cannot tell if it is really a Tian Lu or even a Pixiu, may be others can help.
I find it very interesting though because I do not know what to make of it.
A few months ago I would have called it modern too. However, now I am not too sure.
We really need Larry, Randy and Anita to take a look at this.
I do not know if the celadon color of this creature shows on its photo is its true color. Many times white jade will look celadon (pale green) and celadon jade will look white on photos. If the posted photo shows its real color, then I believe this may be made of a celadon nephrite jade. A scratch test will rule out if it is nephrite or not. If we can test the specific gravity and actual hardness of this piece and if the S.G. is at least 2.92 and the hardness is 6.0 or higher, then I wonder if this can be made of Hetian jade. If it is made of Hetian jade in such large piece, wow, it will be an older piece.
The form and carvings found on this piece does look modern and not very spectacular. Its feet and its head were not carved that great. However, those small lines parallel to each other found inside the grooves on the back part of the front and hind legs seem to indicate that these were made of manual carvings and not carved with modern tools. There are two long crack lines spreading along its left-side body but the color diffusion from those two lines do not look like they were from natural staining and those red stains around them may be result of artificial staining or dyeing. The large area of black stains on its head and its rear end are also quite puzzling, they are simply done quite well if they are artificially dyed and do not look like modern dyeing. I wonder if they can be natural black jade skin left on the jade piece on purpose by the jade carving in creating this piece or if they were dyed in dynasties such as Ming or Qing when such dyeing techniques were at their peak. Or can it be simply a modern piece with superb dyeing?
We really need the Dynasty jade experts � Randy, Larry and Anita take a look at this. I believe we can learn something from each of them.

Bill

It looks like nephrite, but colored by burning and dyed. Probably from the 1960's.

Dear Bill,

Thank you for taking the time and giving me a lengthy explanation.

As you can see it has a horn but if this a Tian Lu or a Pixiu I do not know.

The color is what you call celadon; had to look that up at wikipedia, compared it with the shades of green and celadon did match best.

I did a scratch test, actually had to look it up to see how it is done. It scratched glass and my really sharp and pointy paper knife did not leave any deep mark or deep scratch.

I am posting some more detailed pictures.

Theo / Germany

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sorry have to agree with ernest on this one. The frosty cut line near the tail and the eye brow is a give away.I think it is either sand blasted nepherite or acid treated and stained serpentine. try scratch it with a sharp knife point. The brown stain looks very artificial.seen that color alot on modern serpentine carvings.

Dear Larry,

Thank you for the explanations.

I did a scratch test with the sharpest and pointiest knife I could find. Outcome: it did not leave any deep mark or deep scratch.

With regards to the frosty cut line I must apologize. As you can see I cleaned away a little of the smut and it is less now, close to gone.

It is definitely nephrite when I first looked at it and not serpentine. If there is one thing I can tell with high accuracy it will be the material. Of course there is a slight possibility it can be bowenite and in that case, a scratch test will not be able to tell because bowenite (a type of serpentine) will have a hardness of 5 to 5.5 and will pass the scratch test. Only a specific gravity test can tell (S.G. for bowenite or serpentine will be between 2.5 to 2.7 and for nephrite will be 2.90 and higher, for jadeite will be 3.2 and higher. Some use different numbers.) (*The texture of this piece does not look like serpentine, but rather nephrite.)

I agree with Ernest, Larry that this piece may be modern but I do not believe it was made recently. I think it has to be made at least 10 or 20 years old due to its manual tool marks.

If this is indeed made of nephrite and with such large piece, even in today's market, it may not be real cheap. The brown stain on the surface may be able to be washed off but the one deep inside the jade structure may be another story. It can be soaked in soapy water overnight to see if any of its color may come off. Of course, it may not have any collector's value for most advanced jade collectors. However, you should just enjoy a piece like that especially if you like it. It is much better than many tourist pieces we see today.

Bill

Thanks for Larry's inputs.

"I think it has to be made at least 10 or 20 years old due to its manual tool marks."

If you are referring to the marks indicated by the arrows, I think you are mistaking the carving of the fur texture detail for tool marks.
While all carving is certainly a result of a tool, I believe these diagonally placed lines are not a telltale signature left by a particular tool, but intentional detail lines.

If you are referring to something else, please indicate what you are referring to.

Cheers
Gman

The scratch test does not prove that it is Jade, it could be some sort of Quartz. This is a modern carving!
Ernest

Thank you all for the comments, ideas and help.

One, two remarks left.
The soap did not wash anything away, color stayed as it is.
The small lines are definitely detail lines.
Brings me to my question is this a Tian Lou because it has one horn, right?
I like it and someone told me that because the �Tian Lou� looks backwards this is even better.

If no one objects I will post some more of the things I inherited.

Not quartz, not serpentine. Nephrite.

Modern, may be, not with modern tools.

sorry for my poor english, but I hope you understand what I mean.
During some month I was very interested in your postings.
Your professionalism in given a statement, what is nephrite or not, made me astonished. But then I thought to myself: is the intention you posted coming from your heart or is it some kind of business???
I don't know. But you speak about nephrit, bowenite and serpentin. And you tell uninformed people to make a scratch test with metall.
To proof the hardness. Is this the right way to proof? I don't believe. Because some steel will make a scratch also in nephrite. As a specialist like you you must know it. Because nephrite change in hardness between 5.1 and 6.5. Some steel is hard enough to scratch. A real test is more simple. Scratch with the item on a piece of glass. Glass never is under 6. If this piece make a scratch, it must be nearly by 6.
Next point: what is your experience in nephrit. What can science do for testing it? What is about Thermoluzenz, UV, Cristal growing, influence from earthminerals, floating of electrons, more things which changes the nephrit totally?
Another question: in the ancient times they used no bowenite, no serpentine???
And also: what is the source you compare this item with the source? Any kind of museum? How actually they are? Are their jades they show without treatment?? If jade is treated by acid and oil to clean it, do you believe anybody is able to proof it again? I say no. No proof of cristal growing, no thermoluzenz, no uv, no other proofment can be done. All hints are destroyed. Why for heaven the curator do this way to destroy the jade and destroy all hints of origin? I want to get an idea for this.
What is the reason behind? When you compare such a piece, which was treated with one that is not treated, what do you think? Is there any chance to compare?
But you both, statement: it is modern, no nephrite. So I ask myself, what do you know really about nephrite. About stone, which will change surface and structure during time extremly. I want to know and learn. I love stones and I love nephrit. I have seen it in total different ways. I have good relation to geologist, who learned me a lot. But that is so different from your opinion, therefore please give me and other novice a chance to learn. Where is your experience coming from. My friend, a gelogist, a very well known international tells me, without a test, without a lot of proofments nobody is able to say it is this or this. But you can do. He asked me to speak to you and he is also interested in your answer.
So again: you see a picture and you can immedeatly say: no nephrit, perhaps bowenite, maybe serpentine.
He also wants to learn.

Don't take this personally, it is no attack, I am only an astonished person, who want to learn from most experienced people. Thank you.

Dear Hongshan

Welcome to the club!

Since when it becomes my duty in this forum to reply all of your reasonable doubts, I want to leave this topic alone, but you have referred your reply subject as �ernest, anita and co�. pls understand that I have no shops, no websites, no jades for sales. I am a simple dumb collector as everybody else. All I have posted here are from years of experiences, from grandpa to grandson, from the street hawkers to auction houses, from the tomb robbers� manuscripts to collage and museum curators� research. And pls note that Earnest and I are not related to each other. We happened to be people who love Chinese jades.

In reply to your questions, pls see below answers useful and pls do some research before expressing your opinions, the new jade collectors may pick up something from your wrong information.
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1)To proof the hardness. Is this the right way to proof? Because nephrite change in hardness between 5.1 and 6.5.

Answer:
What kind of scientific data you got from? We only refer to Mohs scale of mineral hardness, pls see the hardness of the followings:-

Nephrite 6 to 6.5
Jadeite 6.5 to 7
knife blade 5.5
iron needle 4 to 5
Serpentine 2.5 to 4.00
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Using pieces of jades to scratch the glass is a technique that the antique jade shops in china are doing, �yes� it can test the hardness of the piece, but pls remember that chalcedony, agate and jasper quartz are harder than glass too. And this method will destroy the corroded part of nephrite.

�Just use unsharp part of needle to pick a little bit like 1 square millimeter (not digging or dragging) the shiny part, not damaged or corroded part, it will not damage the pieces.� Or you may invest to buy hardness pick set if you like.

The best way to test the stone without damaging the piece is SG (Specific Gravity) test.

Weight in Air
SG = ---------------------------------------------
(Weight in air - Weight in water)

Source for SG test results: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~eps2/wisc/sg.html

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2)Next point: what is your experience in nephrit. What can science do for testing it? What is about Thermoluzenz, UV, Cristal growing, influence from earthminerals, floating of electrons, more things which changes the nephrit totally?

Answer:
This will take a very long time to talk about.
-What is your Thermoluzenz ? If you mean thermolucent, it will refer to �analyzes occupational external radiation exposure� which is performed for medical examination. Do you mean Thermoluminescence authenticity testing? It can be perform on ceramic and other antiques not jade and hard stones.

-UV test: It is a skinny surface test to emit visible light after exposure to short-wave or long-wave ultraviolet radiation on the visual and optical properties include those properties dependent upon visible light and are observable with the unaided eye. The optical and physical properties of antique jades may be determined, but the fake antique jades applied by artificial means to pull, push and alter any minerals inside the pieces to come up on the surface as well as additional minerals from the process of faking such as iron ore, mercury ore, copper ore�..ect, the fakes will have the same results as authentic jade artifacts. It is useless!

-Crystal growing : Which one? The whitening one or the lump one?

It can not prove anything since excavated jades in the museums have a few, I think it is less than 5% but fakes in the market 99.99% have it all. Have you ever seen Hongshan Buddha�s head bi disc with C-dragon and crystal growing? At Hongshan time have Buddha?

The whitening caused by alkaline and ammonia environment from the decomposed bodies and organic materials with humidity (less oxygen). However, I did the examination by myself, I put nephrites with dog�s urine in the 2 containers, one is opened another one is sealed. The whitening came up on the surface of nephrite in the opened container had whitening within a week in contrast to the sealed one had none.


�Nephrite is the Amphibole jade , a tremolite-actinolite rock.� Nephrite may have more or less percentage of tremolite and actinolite.

As for the lumps that appeared on the surface of the artifacts, the authentic jades have little as 5%, and the ones that have are not obvious and uncontrollable. The fakers use pressurized chamber to push termolite from the nephrite that have high content of termolite to come up on the surface. And it will push serpentinite from the serpentine to come up on the surface as well. Serpentine is very easy to make lumps due to the hardness is less than nephrite.(see picture)

*Pls notice that the fake jade artifacts with whitening and lumps do not have white nephrite. It is too expensive to fool around.*

-Influence from earthminerals

CHINESE JADE from The Neolithic To The Qing, JESSICA RAWSON

P. 349 SECTION 26
"A further complication in the dating of jades is the nature of material itself. As stressed in the introduction, jade is the material that alters very little, either chemically or by weathering, with age or burial. Neolithic pieces may remain as brightly polished and unblemished as the day they were made. For this reason scientific examination can provide little help with dating."
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3)Another question: in the ancient times they used no bowenite, no serpentine???

Answer:
Off course �yes� ancient china will use other stones to create art too, but they are not value as much as nephrite, nephrite is hard and tough unlike quartz, agate, chalcedony they are harder than nephrite but crispy, the molecules is not packed and tough like nephrite. And most of ancient stone arts that softer than nephrite are not survive in the good shape because the nature of the stones themselves can not stand burial environment.

Serpentine may refer to any of 20 varieties belonging to the serpentine group. Most serpentines are opaque to translucent, light (specific gravity between 2.2�2.9), soft (hardness 2.5 to 4.00), infusible and susceptible to acids.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpentine

Pls note that serpentine has never been called and grouped as gemstones, in contrast to nephrite and jadeite.

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4)what is the source you compare this item with the source? Any kind of museum? How actually they are? Are their jades they show without treatment?? If jade is treated by acid and oil to clean it, do you believe anybody is able to proof it again? I say no. No proof of cristal growing, no thermoluzenz, no uv, no other proofment can be done. All hints are destroyed. Why for heaven the curator do this way to destroy the jade and destroy all hints of origin? I want to get an idea for this.

-I have no comment on this item and all scientific proves you referred in this question are useless.

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5)What is the reason behind? When you compare such a piece, which was treated with one that is not treated, what do you think? Is there any chance to compare?

-I mostly compare to excavation records, reputable collections and museums, books, magazine, HK collectors, and hundreds of jade shops around Hong Kong, Kowloon, New territory, and in mainland China plus my common sense. I live in HK and have to travel once a week to Shen Zhen, Zhuhai, Quangzhou and Shanghai where my husband�s job is relocated.

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6)But you both, statement: it is modern, no nephrite. So I ask myself, what do you know really about nephrite. About stone, which will change surface and structure during time extremly.

Answer:

See answers of questions no.1 and 2


7)I want to know and learn. I love stones and I love nephrit. I have seen it in total different ways. I have good relation to geologist, who learned me a lot. But that is so different from your opinion, therefore please give me and other novice a chance to learn.

Answer: If your geologist told you that nephrite change in hardness between 5.1 and 6.5. He
is completely dumb, pls learn from books and reputable sources.

See answers of questions no.1 and 2


8)Where is your experience coming from. My friend, a gelogist, a very well known international tells me, without a test, without a lot of proofments nobody is able to say it is this or this. But you can do. He asked me to speak to you and he is also interested in your answer.

Answer: Scientific prove, test, exam and opinion are not reliable for jade artifacts.

See answers of question no.1 and 2


9)So again: you see a picture and you can immedeatly say: no nephrit, perhaps bowenite, maybe serpentine.

Answer:
Seeing picture is just like you do window shopping without touching the pieces, or judging the plastic flowers from the real one. All stones and minerals visual appearance are different. I look at luster, colors, vein, inclusion, structure of the stone and most of minerals with a metallic luster are heavy which means they are harder than 5 in Mohs scale.

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Have Fun
Anita Mui / The Cleaning Lady
Ernest, Anita and co.,

Dear Hongshan

I have cut and pasted the hardness table because it was too big and too long, and then I forgot to amend the hardness in the nephrite table.

Pls find new table below with the correction of hardness of nephrite.

Have fun
Anita Mui

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