Abstract
The evaluation of Chinese jade carvings poses difficult problems for connoisseurs and appraisers. There are three approaches involved in assessing jade carvings produced in the major workshops located in mainland China, Hong Kong or Taiwan. The first is that of the physical properties of the work — the identification and quality of the material and the size and condition of the carving. The second is that of its aesthetic properties — the quality of workmanship, the school, style and period characteristics, the desirability of its shape, subject, palette and proportions and, once again, its size. The third aspect, extraneous properties, involves such issues as the provenance of the work, market volatility and local taste. These three aspects form the basis of this chapter.
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Notes to Chapter
Daphne Lange Rosenzweig and Abraham Rosenzweig, ‘Jadeite and Nephrite’, Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, Summer 1986, pp.4–17.
Zhang Zinglian and Zhao Shuhan, A Glossary of Chinese Archeology (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1983), p. 24. The authors recently translated and defined yu as “gems, especially jade; gem-stones, precious or semi-precious, of all kinds, nephrite.”
See also Yang Hanchen et al., Xinjiang’s Gems and Jades ( Xinjiang People’s Publishing House, 1986).
Daphne Lange Rosenzweig and Abraham Rosenzweig, ‘Jadeite and Nephrite’, Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, Summer 1986, pp.4–17., footnote 40;
Daphne Lange Rosenzweig, The Appraisal of Oriental Art (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1987), pp. 91–100.
See also Peter G. Embrey and John P. Fuller, editors, A Manual of New Mineral Names, 1892–1978 (London: British Museum, and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 170;
Robert M. Shipley, Dictionary of Gems and Gemology (Santa Monica: Gemological Institute of America, 1974, sixth edition), pp. 100, 104. Brochures available at the autumn/fall 1990 Hong Kong gem exposition demonstrate the continued use of misleading terms, particularly by mainland workshops in their advertisements and by firms whose raw material source is in Australia and carving workshops in Hong Kong. My thanks to Daniel Sanchez for his help in assembling a packet of typical literature at this exposition.
Daphne Lange Rosenzweig and Abraham Rosenzweig, ‘Alternative Hardstones and Jade Substitutes’, Journal of International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, Autumn 1987, pp. 14–17.
For a report on the nature of these fairs, see Edward J. and Judi Tripp, The Canton Trade Fair, Lapidary Journal, Feb. 1983, pp. 184–57. The Tripps report that the hardstone carvings are brought to Canton from workshops in Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing and Hunan (which specializes in soapstone).
Stephen Markbreiter, ‘Jade Carving in Two Cities’ Arts of Asia, Jan.-Feb. 1985, pp.63–73. Several of his illustrations from Taiwan show workmen carving true Korean nephrite. See also in Rosenzweig and Rosenzweig, Jadeite and Nephrite, ibid., figs. 8–15, views of a private Taiwan jade workshop, with evidence of the widespread use of Korean nephrite from rough to finished forms.
Craig Clunas, ‘Jade Carvers and Their Customers in Ming China’, The Bulletin of the Friends of Jade VI, Spring 1989, pp.33–52.
Abraham Rosenzweig, On the ‘Rind’ of Nephrite Jade, The Bulletin of the Friends of Jade III, Fall 1983, p.70.
John Y. Ng and Edmond Root, Jade for You: Value Guide to Fine Jewelry Jade, Jade N Gem Corporation of America, Los Angeles, 1984. A reproduction of the colour chart, with specific names assigned to various shades, is found on page 104–105 of that volume.
D. Healey and R. M. Yu, ‘Quality Grading of Jadeite’, Lapidary Journal, Jan. 1983, p.1671.
Roger Keverne, The Bulletin of the Friends of Jade VI, Spring 1989, p.24.
B. S. McElney, ‘In Search of Song Jades in Ip Yee’, Chinese Jade Carving, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1983, p.34.
For a discussion of pre-modern and modern jade mountain carvings, see Barry Till and Paula Swart, Mountain Retreats in Jade, Arts of Asia, July–Aug. 1986, pp.42–53,
Stephen Markbreiter, Addendum to Jade Mountains: Modern Carvings of Jiangsu or Shanghai, Arts of Asia, July–Aug. 1986. pp.130–35.
See Daphne Lange Rosenzweig and Abraham Rosenzweig, ‘Jadeite and Nephrite’, Journal of the International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society, Summer 1986, pp.4–17, Ft. 9, for a listing of some sources that discuss the various methods of treating jades or creating synthetic jades.
S. H. Hansford, Chinese Carved Jades, New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, Conn., 1968;
Richard Gump, Jade: Stone of Heaven, Doubleday, New York, 1962, Ch. 10;
Arthur and Grace Chu, The Collector’s Book of Jade, Crown, New York, 1978, especially the chapter titled ‘An Investigation into Dyed Jade’, are among many other sources that discuss methods by which jade can be and has been stained, heated, dyed and otherwise enhanced or transformed.
Roger Keverne, The Bulletin of the Friends of Jade VI, Spring 1989, p.27, referring to a carving, #229, sold at Sotheby’s New York on 19–20 October 1988.
Brian Morgan, Dr Newton’s Zoo: A Study of Post-Archaic Small Jade Carvings, Bluett and Sons Ltd., London, 1981, p.4.
B. S. McElney, ‘In Search of Song Jades in Ip Yee’, Chinese Jade Carving, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1983, p.12,
An interesting possibility being developed for testing the age of jades was presented by K. V. Ettinger and Robert L. Frey, ‘Nitrogen Profiling - a proposed dating technique for difficult artefacts’, in Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Symposium on Archaeometry and Archeological Prospection (Edinburgh, 1976), pp. 293–311.
Joan M. Hartman makes a blanket statement that “Science offers no help in dating jades” in her catalogue Ancient Chinese Jades from the Buffalo Museum of Science (New York: The China Institute in America, 1975), p. 9, but later describes various x-ray diffraction and spectographic analyses which were used to help in her assessment of the dates of several jades under discussion. While it is probably true that, as she suggests, one must “rely on stylistic analysis, interpretation of subject matter, symbolism, cutting methods ... and that which the archeologist’s spade has uncovered from excavation” (p. 7) for a completely rounded analysis, there is no doubt that today science has come strongly to the aid of jade-carving experts; indeed, given the sophisticated new methods of dying and otherwise treating material, scientific tests are indispensable. As Desmond Gure suggests, “ in specific instances these applications may be necessary to supplement stylistic analysis of form and decoration” (‘Selected Examples from the Jade Exhibition at Stockholm, 1963: A comparative study’, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 36 (1964), p. 121.)
Major archaeological discoveries of jade carvings during the 1970s and 1980s have been summarized by, among others: Ip Yee, ibid., ‘Introduction’, pp.18–21;
Yeung Kin-fong, Jade Carving in Chinese Archeology, Volume One, The Chinese University Press for the Centre for Chinese Archeology and Art, Institute of Chinese Studies, Hong Kong, 1987;
Huang Xuanpei, Chinese Neolithic Jade Ware, in Elizabeth Childs-Johnson, Ritual and Power: Jades of Ancient China, The China Institute in America, New York, 1988, pp.7–15.
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Rosenzweig, D.L. (1991). Appraisal of Chinese Jades. In: Keverne, R. (eds) Jade. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3922-3_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3922-3_10
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