Part One of a Three Part Series

Late Eastern Zhao Period Royal Funeral Vessel

Transitional Re-Polished Grey Nephrite

Lidded Vessel

Originally with Total ‘Calcification’

The tremendous artwork of all the Archaic Periods has always provoked a profound feeling in us and has led to the vast majority of the Fredericks/McIntire Collection being focused on these original works in the Jade Arts. From the earliest times of the Neolithic Period when objects of jade and stone were so pervasively used in religious context, up to the beginning of the famous Han Dynasty, there has never been in our opinion such an uninterrupted explosion of true Chinese genius in the art and expression of “The Stone of Heaven”. From the time of the Neolithic Period for approximately 8,000 years there was a transcendence of design the likes of which will most likely never be reached again, and while some beautiful and exotic pieces were created during such periods as the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the pieces from these later periods were mostly influenced by what had come before, when the succession of creativity was mostly unabated. So, with the odd exception (and appreciation for the technical aspects – like the famous Ming Dynasty Fish Dragons presented to scholars), our collection much mirrors that of the great Grenville Winthrope III in what we perceive to be the epitome of creative expression, in the most difficult stone in the world to work and under such unimaginable conditions, to create such masterpieces of human religious passion and respect. However, with that said, some of the newest works by the most modern Gold Medal winning Master Sculptors at the recent Tiangong Jiang Contest in Beijing proves the Chinese genius is still alive and thriving once more (in the pieces we were blessed enough to view through the courtesy of Lin Wang PhD.), as the creativity shown during this contest in all the fields of carving expertise we witnessed were astounding to say the least.

But, creativity does not necessary translate to ‘Power’ (‘power’ being understood in the East far better than in the West), and while new web sites are popping up all the time trying to ‘play’ and, in our opinion, exploit the power of modern pieces and replication carvings for personal and monetary gain, they show very little true understanding of the stone and rather play on words like ‘chakra’ and ‘metaphysical properties’. It is to this end that we introduce this masterpiece of the ancient art of Sacred Carving for the real Shamanic Kings, who were the only ones allowed to own this type of the “Stone of Heaven” and be able to use it in the correct fashion for which it was created by the Old Masters, and imbued through proper ceremony with the true force. The Later Imperial Families tried to emulate these items, and the Mandarin classes chose them mostly for the purpose of displaying their political and social status.

Above Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSi Using Ef 24-70mm f/2.8L Lens

While much has always been made of the famous Translucent White Nephrite Jade used during this period and the ‘mutton fat’ White Jade (yingyu) favored during portions of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 8 CE), very little is ever spoken about the exquisite grey vessels of the same periods, and their usage. Yet some of most fantastic designs ever conceived were created during these periods, using this amazingly tight- fibered, and yet flowing nephritic grey stone. The fact that they were most sacred vessels should not ever have escaped the attention of the Western world, and yet it seems that’s exactly what happened, from all of the literature we have read over the past 12 years. And while the White Nephrite Jade was chosen for the Gold medals at this last Olympics in Beijing, the Grey Nephrite Jade was used for the Silver medals. It seems China still knows the importance of the Grey Jade, but the rest of the world remains in the dark as to its true importance, and it takes vessels and sacred items made of this stone to convey the fact that it was not just another jade, but a ‘special jade’ with special significance. At 14-1/8″ Height X 9″ Width X 3/3/4″ Depth and weighing 8 LBs., 1.5 oz., this is not a ‘little’ vessel and would equal any shown in the Beijing Museum from this Period, with the exception of perhaps those in the Sacred Vaults, which are not shown to the general public. The overall beauty of the vessel, and evolutionary achievement stylistically and technically should ensure this vessel a place in the annals of famous Chinese works of jade art, and while it does have some definite design attributes associated with the famous Han Dynasty vessels, there are reasons we place this vessel in the very late Eastern Zhao Period and not the Han Dynasty. These types of pieces (created by a true Master) are always the most difficult for us to date with certainty, because of their transcendental nature of ‘living’ on the cusp of two eras. Designs do not change on a single day as Reigns and Periods may, and much overlapping is found if one knows both the stylistic approach to dating, and the technical aspects involved. But most important of all is the oh-so-subtle aspect of ‘feel’, which is extremely well- known and used in China by the True, Great, Old Masters, passed down for centuries if not millennia, and so little-understood in the Western World. In the Chinese way, the saying is, “You must have touched a thousand real pieces to be called a master”, and this particular ‘Way’ takes a very long time to master, especially for those not associated with a major Museum specializing in this ‘Way’ of jade authentication of ‘touching’ a thousand real pieces. It has taken me over seven years of ‘just this way’ after first learning of the technique from a great man from the west coast of California who had emmigrated here years before from Hong Kong. While he is no longer with us on this plane, some may remember him as the man who always wore black ‘cowboy’ clothes and had the most sensitive little fingers with the long nails. My teaching in this area started with him visiting me almost every two weeks and never speaking more than two or three words; just watching as he touched the jade pieces we owned, over and over again with his little finger, and helping me learn that which he was trying to impart. From there it has taken me seven years to develop this small but important skill.  I passed my 1,000th piece some time ago, and even now know I have much farther to go. This is why the scientific approach is so important to us, as we truly wish to know all aspects of dating and analysis at our disposal. As a special note: It took me over three months to get this man to use a loupe on a piece he could not figure out, but kept saying old – not old. It was a re-cut and re-polished old piece made into a ‘gear bi’ which only had two small barely discernible original string saw cuts . On seeing through his first loupe, he became so excited and I will never forget his face.

Above Two Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSI Using 24-70 f/2.8L Lens

The amazing detail created during a period of no ‘high speed’ drills and industrial diamond tools is hard to fathom for those of us who have had at least a little experience in working nephrite jade. Most of us have heard about how it took a lifetime from start to finish to create one of these incredible works of art. When one looks back at the carvings in basalt and soft alabasters and marbles of other cultures from the same period, it is even more incredible to perceive how these vessels were accomplished in even that short a time. With the Chinese core and solid drill technology (now archeologically proven to have existed far back into the Neolithic Period) being so advanced by this period, one still has to take into account the extreme hardness of the darker ‘Imperial’ Grey Jade, which is showing to be incredibly hard for nephrite and extremely tightly fibered, making it one of the toughest stones on earth to carve. I have yet to see a study on what mineral, or minerals, make the pure white jade become grey in its makeup, and it always has an extremely curious anomaly in every stone this author has examined, whether carved and degraded, or in its ‘rough’, un-cut form. This anomaly is that we have never seen this stone with a colored rind of any kind except in surface cracks of pebbles straight from the Khotan Region. Sometimes there is a slight reddish tinge inside the cracks which we find intruding from an outside cause, but never from oxidation of iron in the stone itself unless it is in extremely minute amounts. What we do find in every case is either water-worn smooth grey pebbles with occasional ‘snowflake’ areas, or in the case of burial items, the deeply degraded white spotted areas which we can see all over this vessel, even after it has been re-cut and re-polished at least two separate times. At one time the entire vessel was completely covered with this white degradation, and where it was first re-polished long ago, and by old ‘hand-tooling’ techniques, they brought out the beautiful grey nephrite coloring, while the areas with the degradation go through the entire vessel. This type of degradation is only caused by extreme age in a burial situation, and can not be caused by the modern acid etching techniques used on replications. This is the main reason (along with the thousands of original tooling marks still on the vessel) we have chosen to leave this vessel in its ‘as collected’ state. With the exception of just washing off the obligatory reddish mud (which coats most pieces that came out of China), this vessel was chosen because of the literally thousands of areas where positive identification could be made (some of which will be shown in the accompanying Macro and Microscopic pictures), and with the thought that taking off any more than the lightly mudded edges would mar our ability to show a prospective client the different time periods in which this vessel had been buried, cleaned and re-polished, re-buried, cleaned and re-polished again. We decided it best to perform a final cleaning in front of a buyer if they would so wish.

Above Two Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSi Using EF 24-70mm f/2.8L Lens

The above two photos once again show the tremendous creativity of an age gone by when the art of carving jade was reaching its zenith, and the ones for whom the pieces were made were to become almost extinct as time went on – The great Shamanic Kings, prior to the Dynastic Rulers which were to come. It is because of pieces like these, and others that exceed the two thousand year-old mark, that the top people from China who have come to view our collection will literally not touch, with even their fingertips (but they will get their fingers to within an inch), the jades in our collection that are over two thousand years old. When asked why, they simply say they are too sacred. (But they will handle and fondle all the younger pieces following this period).  They have told me they know that I have permission to touch them, but they do not, in the most reverent manner. Many times I have felt this way, as the pieces truly do have a ‘feeling’ that no other jade artifact has to me, and to others who know, as well. It is hard to explain this in the modern world of today, but the Chinese still understand such things, as they have for thousands of years. Now, we’ll go back to the more common ways to authenticate a real artifact, and will leave the ‘feeling’ for other articles to come. In the next set of pictures, we shall show one of the reasons why each authentic artifact has its own ‘history’, and the fact that those who clean them up take a bit of artistic license themselves, which sometime makes our job as authenticators easier, and sometimes makes it miserable. Look through The Complete Volumes Of Jades Unearthed In China; it will give one a bit of appreciation of this concept, as will taking a tour through Harvard University’s collection of archaic jades.

Above Two Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSi Using EF 24-70mm f/2.8L Lens

In the first of the above photos we can see a wonderfully formed, lidded vessel from a somewhat earlier period then the main subject vessel of this article. This is another of the Fredericks/McIntire collection, and is actually part of set of mated vessels. We are showing this set of pictures and the ones below this paragraph to illustrate just how degraded a true funeral burial vessel from this Period becomes, and how the workers have cleaned these vessels for hundreds of years, each in his own way, or the way set forth by the Master who sets the work in place. The ‘reddish’ areas shown in all three picture are the in-situ portions of the vessel. They remained distinctive, despite  the way this vessel was re-cut and re-polished. As can easily be noticed, the iron oxides on this vessel are more pronounced than they are on the subject vessel as a result of the stone chosen having a different chemical makeup. This stone had places which definitely had more iron naturally in the stone, but only in certain areas, such as the portions showed in pictures one, two and three. However, only in pictures one and three do we see the iron oxidation truly penetrating the entire depth of the vessel. One view of it is the area of the left-facing handle on the lid, and better seen in the third picture; the area is located in the select portion from the original cut on the rim of the lid (as will be seen below), rising up to the top portion of the eyebrow on the central Taotie face. The rest of the light grey jade vessel retains its coloring well, and still shows the degradation in the white areas going all the way through the stone. When modern replications are treated with strong acids and alkalis to degrade the jade (or usually, simulents), the surface of the stones will be much more uniform in their degradation, as the acids and alkalis work quickly to degrade the entire surface, and rarely penetrate to any noticeable depth, except what appears to be depth in areas of suspension holes, and any natural cracks in the simulents usually used. True degradation takes time, and time only, as the natural decomposition of jades starts where there are weaker areas in the nephrite. Over time, these miniscule weaker areas are subjected to water intrusion (as jade, being as tough as it is, remains porous in nature and allows moisture to penetrate). With the temperature and moisture changes of the seasons comes the expansion and contraction that starts the damage in the weaker areas, resulting in the ‘pitting’, as can easily be seen in the photographs above. After enough time in the ground under these conditions, we find that the jade vessels and pendants are all ‘eaten’ to a certain degree, depending on the soil conditions, moisture levels, and whether the item was a surface find or burial item. Many other factors (and combinations of factors) play a role and have an effect on original artifacts, and it is our job to logically determine what the nature of burial conditions was for each object , as well as is humanly possible, not having been with the item in question during its entire life span. Add to this the fact the many artifacts were discovered hundreds of years ago (if not thousands) and have been subsequently buried because of war,  famine, or a myriad of other causes; thus, it can be quite a challenge to figure a piece out logically, and be reasonably certain of the history of an artifact. Having in-situ pieces has helped immensely with our knowledge base, and studying items that have been buried three or four different times also adds to this knowledge base. In some cases, we cannot clean an item in our collection anymore than we have already, or it wouldn’t be possible to show under microscopic conditions the four separate burials it has undergone.  We always have such items on display for viewing and further research. Of particular note in the last two photos above, the reader can see the exact transition from newly polished areas to in-situ condition portions, with the two different Taotei eyes being a wonderful place of focus in pictures two and three; the entire area going from right to left for the viewer. One other marvelous aspect of this particular vessel can be observed at the lower 1/4 portion of the vessel itself, in an area that shows a distinct line running across the entire width of the vessel. This is an extremely old lacquer repair (which is incredibly durable and long-lasting; there was absolutely no degradation to the lacquer glue, or the bond, after a three week soaking in acetone) that was either performed before the vessel was first funereally buried, or extremely soon  after it was exhumed, then re-buried, due to the fact the the degradation to the re-polished jade is exactly the same on both sides of the line under microscopic conditions, and in some parts, transcends the entire wall of the vessel.

Above Three Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSi Using MPE 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Lens at 2X

The two photos above will conclude Part One of this Two Part Series, with Part Two to be published in a few days.

In the first picture above, we can tell that the ‘cleaner’ of this particular vessel chose to leave some parts completely untouched, which is wonderful for authenticators from either the East Or the West. As explained before, there are certain aspects of funereal items which cannot be faked (as of yet), and doubtfully ever will be. Some conditions we find on items, whether  jade or pottery or bronze, just cannot be reproduced and can only come from time (like a tree root eating its way clear through the plinth of a Tang Dynasty horse). The pitting we see here is one of those instances that cannot be replicated, because the stone was so pure to begin with;  it did not have massive impurities for the acids to work on in such a deep manner as to completely penetrate the walls of the vessels. One sees this effect only in 100% authentic vessels of this approximate period. For example, Ming Dynasty Pieces (depending on burial conditions) will be degraded, but not to the extent or depth that is found in jade items buried for thousands of years longer.   While occasionally having some deeper pitting, it will be to much lesser extent than we find on the older pieces, and nowhere close to the all-inclusive look and depth of the Han Dynasty and earlier period items. This ‘rule’ even applies to the high-desert pieces found from both of the aforementioned periods. Genuine oxidation takes time, genuine wear takes time, and genuine penetration of jade by such substances as true loess soil iron takes time. With a little cleaning and the right equipment with which to inspect the item, it then becomes a matter of knowing the faking techniques, and finding out how much re-polishing has taken place (sometimes the cleaners get a bit carried away). In the second part of this article, we will see the through-transmission degradation and Macro and Microscopic photos of the subject vessel , along with the close-ups of the re-tooling and both re-polishings.

David Fredericks  – Yulongwei — Phone: 520-991-2153

TimelessJade.com

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Gemological & Geological Jade Articles, Jades Of Antiquity, The Awesome Feeling Of Jade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.