Magnificent Late Eastern Zhou Nephrite Jade Funeral Vessel

- Old Repairs With New & Original Gold Gilt

With the full vessel measuring approximately 17-1/2″ Height X 9-1/2″ Width X 4-1/2 ” Depth, this wonderful late Eastern Zhao Funeral jade must have made, in its original state, quite a presentation. It was made from the same Nephrite Jade boulder in three original pieces – the main vessel, the lid, and the separate finial for the top. We can see in the above picture the re-lacquer gluing of the finial which occurred most likely around one thousand years ago (see part two). In going over the entire re-glued sections of the feet, we find no damage to the nephrite on either the bottoms of the feet or on the top of the jade lid. With this being the case, we know it was originally a lacquer-glued finial; if it were broken off in the initial burial, we would have found damage to both the bottoms of the feet and to the top of the lid, as we have on other vessels in our collection where the entire top was made of one piece  and the finial had been broken off and repaired. The fact that it was is not an original lacquer application can be seen under microscopic conditions, as this lacquer matches exactly the rest of the remaining lacquer, which was used to highlight and accentuate the re-cut Lei Wen patterns on the vessel, which had degraded away during the original burial. The gold gilt on the lacquer repaired finial also matches the gold gilt applied to the rest of lacquer at the time of its first re-cutting and re- polishing, as will be better viewed in the coming Macro and Microscopic photographs.

Above Photo Taken with Canon EOS XSI Using MPE 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Macro Lens at 1X

Above Photo Taken with Canon EOS XSi Under 35X Microscopic Power

In the above two photographs, we can see all the iron oxidation to the original nephrite jade that has occurred to the vessel since it was originally made well over two thousand years ago. When this vessel was first made, all the red rind was cut away in the original shaping of the vessel, and only through extended burial can this iron oxidation occur to such a point that it totally penetrates entire sections, where it can be seen after the re-cutting and re-polishing. Dyes will not penetrate nephrite to such an extent nor as naturally, even under the conditions they use to dye jadeite, with heavy acid baths and centrifugal force. With the microscopic photograph above, the details of the nephrite degradation since the secondary burial become very evident in the pitting of the jade, and the integrity of the approximately one thousand year-old lacquer glue can be seen. Over all four of the finial’s feet, this lacquer glue shows complete integrity, with no major separations to be found. The old style lacquer glue never ceases to amaze me as to its endurance, and if it has not  sustained a major sideways shock, will literally outlast the nephrite, as we have seen original jade repairs using lacquer on items that were chipped during construction over three thousand years ago, and the jade will be degraded away, leaving the original lacquer repair protruding up above the degraded jade. In the microscopic photo above, the remnants of the secondary gold gilding can be easily identified, as they still cling tenuously to the re-buried, further-degraded and later re-polished surface, most likely sometime around the 18Th Century, as will be shown later in this article.

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

The above two photographs start to show in extreme clarity what has been discussed in Parts One & Two of this three-part series concerning the variations in nephrite jade, even within the same boulder. After thousands of years of burial, the nephritic structure starts to degrade in such a way as to truly show its inherent characteristics. In the first photograph above, it is quite evident where the moisture, for over two thousand- plus years, has penetrated the Khotan-Hetian nephrite and caused the less structurally-intact portion to undergo a deep iron oxidation, while the portion right next to it did not have as deep an effect. This is because the central lighter band which runs through the stone is a bit more porous than the outer section of the original boulder, which is more tightly fibered (as will be seen in following microscopic photographs showing the final re-polishing). Also of interest in this photo is the remnants of the secondary lacquer and gold gilding still clinging to the re-cut swirl in the viewer’s upper right corner. In the second photograph above, we can see how the vessel appeared when it was first unearthed (or at least something close to it, as it has further degraded since then), in a portion of the central, lighter colored band which was left in its original state, with no re-cutting of the Lei Wen pattern. We can also see a piece of the original gold gilt from when the vessel was first made late in the Eastern Zhou Period, in the viewer’s bottom left corner, still attached in the original tooling groove of the original Lei Wen pattern. While it is a common misbelief that gold remains pure and does not degrade or tarnish, it is just that – a misbelief. Gold will tarnish and degrade depending on burial conditions and the original purity of the gold. While not possessing micro-probe analysis equipment, it would be our highest expectation that the remaining original degraded gold would test to everyone’s satisfaction as indeed being gold, or at minimum a high content gold alloy. It is also extremely noticeable even in this lower power photograph, that the original gold gilt did not lie on a bed of Lacquer but rather directly upon the nephrite itself. Also, in the last photograph we can start to directly see the porous structure of this particular band of lighter-colored jade in the middle of the vessel. While being more porous than the outer, darker green stone, the oxidized lighter nephrite is still fibrous in nature, but not as tightly fibered as the remainder of the vessel.

Above Two Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSi Under 35X Microscopic Power

Easily seen in both photographs above are the small flakes of gold still embedded in the original degraded gold gilt. While some of the upper gold flakes on top may be from the second gold gilding from some one thousand years ago, there are definitely pieces of the original gold still sticking into the degraded gold, or gold alloy. These two photos came from an area on top of the side dragon flanges of the lid, and from the one side which is more oxidized, and can be seen in the first photograph at the top of this page. Signs of original degradation to the nephrite appear in the top photograph above as the white ‘calcification’ we have all read about over the years, which is not calcification at all, but is properly termed ‘degradation’. With a sharp eye, some of the secondary sanding marks can be seen running vertically in both photographs. Even these slight vertical grooves are pitted and much more degraded than the third polishing marks to be seen in some of the remaining photos in this article.

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

Again, in the above two photos, we can see the well-degraded nephrite and very clear markings of the re-cutting of the original design. The same type of temper was used in most of the lacquer, as was shown in part two of this series, with the exception that in the grooved-design areas, the temper was more finely ground, as can be seen better in the first photograph above than the one below it. The degradation inside the newer tooling marks is easily discernible in both photographs, with the malachite over the newer lacquer, most likely from impurities in the secondary gilding, showing very clearly in the last photo. In the lower photograph, we can also see the original tooling marks, just to the viewer’s right, at the top of the curl in the design and to the right of (the jutting off) green malachite. On this part of the vessel, the immediate design was re-cut, and the degraded, shallower original tooling marks were left alone. Most times, the re-cutting on old vessels follows this path, as the original tooling marks are often not as deep and defined as the newer ones. When re-cutting a design, we must remember that they were cutting through degraded jade and not a fresh block cut from a boulder. This allows the newer tooling to progress deeper into the the remains of the original designs, but I have yet to find an incised design on an older vessel where they have perfectly re-cut every line. Almost always, they skip a bit in the tighter portions of the designs, or at the ends of grooves where they ‘trail off’.

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

In the above two photographs, we revert back to our regular lens just for a minute, to re-show parts of the late Eastern Zhou  jade vessel in its natural degraded state, along with some of the secondary cutting performed so long ago. While the top photo shows, in wonderful detail, the ravages of time on burial jades, it also lends a bit of insight into the reverence the Chinese felt in the past for these original sacred jade pieces from the burials of the Royal Families, and the last truly great innovations in the art of creative design in jade carving. From this point in history, all other jades start to pale in form and power, as the beginnings of ancestor worship started to take the highest precedence in the jade, stone, lacquer and bronze arts. Before this time, stemming from the early Neolithic Period, there had been a continuous progression in form and design for over seven thousand years, which abruptly came to an almost screeching halt at the end of the Eastern Zhou Period, and while some very fine examples of the arts exist from the last two thousand years, in our opinion they are but hollow shells compared to the original pieces from which they were copied. It amazes us that China, while continuing to ’saber rattle’ concerning the sacred and original treasures of this period and their exquisite and unique genius of form and production, unlike anything else in the world at the time and with technology that was certainly unsurpassed in the working of the world’s toughest stone, still hides their finest treasures from the world in the vaults of their museums, and continues to put precedence on the arts of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, while the finest jade art ever produced in China still languishes in almost total obscurity.

Above Two Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSI Under 35X Microscopic Power

In the two photographs above, under 35X microscopic power, we find in two different places on the vessel the approximately one thousand year-old re-grooving, the remaining secondary re-gilding over the lacquer, and most importantly to us, the clearest pictures yet of the structure of the degraded nephrite after a minimum of two extended burial periods. The first photo above shows an area where the original jade was most likely a lighter shade of green than the outside edges of the vessel, and being less tightly-fibered inside darker green area, sustained much more iron oxidation. Even after the first re-cutting and re-polishing of the vessel, this iron oxidation runs completely through the sides of the vessel, while the darker and more tightly-fibered sides did not undergo this extreme amount of oxidation, better withstanding the ravages of time and corrosive burial conditions, and in turn remains to this day mostly the same (other than the re-polishing) as it did when the vessel was first made some 2,300-plus years ago. Comparing the two photographs, it is easy to see the difference between the two different portions. In the first photo, we can see it is more oxidized, but more important is the structural integrity of the jade itself; we can easily see the tighter nephritic fibers and denser structure of the nephrite. The second photo was taken where the vessel is much more white in color and shows us a far less typical granular effect in the degraded nephrite. We will all undoubtably get tired of my saying that all nephrite is not created equal, and is truly one of the most misunderstood stones in the world. However, in the bottom photo above, we can still see the fibrous nature inside the granulation that almost takes on a compressed metamorphic presence. It is very possible that this portion of the original nephrite boulder had undergone some extreme pressure and had shattered in the vein from whence it came, and over time, the granular fractures ‘healed’, so to speak.

Above Photo Taken with Canon EOS XSI Using EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Lens

Above Two Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSi Under 35X Microscopic Power

The two lower photographs above were taken at 35X microscopic power in the green jade area of the first picture. This is to us an extremely important feature, as it clearly shows the vessel was re-polished at least once after the initial and secondary burials. In the two microscopic photographs, we can easily discern the last sanding/polishing marks as pitted grooves running horizontally. It is due to the fact that these polishing grooves have started to degrade and pit that we can closely date the time period of the final re-polishing. If this last re-polishing had been done in the last fifty to one hundred years, we would see a much different surface than what is seen above. The polishing marks would look much cleaner and would have very little of the pitting and wear that we see in the photos. This surface was not acid-etched, nor was it fire-burnt to attain the look it has now, which only comes naturally over time. By the pitting, wear, and accompanying degradation, we would estimate this final re-polishing to have been done somewhere between the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty periods. This would put the final polishing on this magnificent vessel around the 17Th Century period. Since this time, we do not believe the vessel was re-buried, and if it was, it would have been for short periods (as with occupation during WWII) and would have been in a well-sealed environment. This type of wear and pitting is usually caused from hand salts and acids from subsequent touching of the vessel, as would occur when being viewed and revered over time. This wonderful vessel stays on display at our gallery, and any inquiries or serious studies can be arranged by appointment only.

Note: Due to our up-coming Jade show in the first week of February, and the fact that I have a multitude of authentications to finish in the next three weeks, I will be taking a hiatus from this site (other than monitoring) for the next month. We will be having some extremely exciting new articles on intriguing jade and jadeite specimens, and more artifacts starting later in February, so please keep coming back. You can visit us at our Jade Show or go to JadeThroughTheAges.com .

David Fredericks  – Yulongwei

Antiquities, Plus…

Your email:

 

Magnificent Late Eastern Zhou Nephrite Jade Funeral Vessel

- Old Repairs With New & Original Gold Gilt

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

With its most definitive ‘banding’ of colors, this wonderful vessel helps to show one of the true natures of nephrite jade in its very structure, and the vessel itself teaches volumes of what actually occurs under certain burial and re-burial conditions. Made from a solid boulder of distinctive ‘celadon’ green nephrite with an origin core of lighter green to white nephrite running through its middle portion, we see one of the most unique features which often occur in nephrite jade from the Khotan-Hetian region. Rarely do we find the same tightness of fibers that we find in say, Wyoming Edwards Black Nephrite Jade. Rather, the fibers in most Khotan Jades are not nearly as densely  packed together as the older Wyoming jades, but as in most things, there are no absolutes. Khotan jades almost always test harder and more conductive than do the tighter fibered jades of Wyoming and some from New Zealand, British Columbia and other places. This helps us to determine the source material for some of the artifacts we own and and are currently authenticating for others. Differing jade sources offer differing looks, hardness, associated minerals, and conductivity. British Columbian nephrite does not look like most Wyoming jade, and neither look like the jades from the Khotan region or the extremely distinctive jades of the Lake Tai Region, and all show similar yet totally different general formations. The most singular standout-verifier on this entire vessel can easily be seen in the photographs of the last article and the accompanying photos directly above. In this wide band of what is now mostly white nephrite can be seen the unreproducible, distinct, through-transmission, and iron oxidation in the lighter band which was effected more deeply by the water and soil conditions in long term burial. These through-transmission, iron oxidized veins are all of natural occurrence, and flow through the degraded jade. A solid boulder of nephrite will never have these thick, wide, and naturally occurring iron oxide sections, but will rather have a thinner red iron oxide band penetrating the stone to a much lesser degree, side to side, when the original nephrite has a unhealed fracture, and moisture has penetrated. The old and new replicators can not get the dyes to penetrate through nephrite jade to such a depth, and when they try, they fall far short of anything approaching realistic degradation of the original iron inside the nephrite (which turns nephrite green). While the entire surface of this vessel was highly degraded when it was first uncovered from the tomb, it was in this wide lighter band which runs through its center that the worst of the degradation took place. This coincides with the fact that this wider band of lighter colored nephrite was more porous and less tightly fibered, leading the way for more water and corrosives to attack the band more readily, and while it still worked on the darker celadon green, it did not effect these areas in such an aggressive manner. This separate degree of degradation, caused by the different nephritic structures, will be amply verified in the Macro and Microscopic photographs to follow in this section of the article and in the final, Part Three of this series.

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

When the original stone for this vessel was chosen, it would have been a boulder from Khotan with the interior having the characteristics of the bright celadon color we see on the the sides of this piece, with a lighter green to white major band running through the middle. The only iron oxide red, at the time of original string saw cutting to rough out the shape, would have been on the rind, or skin, of the boulder. As the rind was cut away it would have left a two-toned, pure stone of the colors described. The red iron oxide coloration we see here on this vessel could only have come from long-term burial as moisture and corrosive soils worked on the iron in the nephrite over a very long period of time, and it worked at the least dense portion of the stone to a much higher degree than the tighter, harder and more fibrous portions to the outside. This particular vessel was made of three portions from the same boulder, and is comprised of the massive bottom portion, the main body of the lid and a the separate lion finial with bifurcated tail (which was applied with lacquer glue). The lacquer glue which now holds the lion in place is a secondary application and was re-fixed to the lid after the finial had cracked off during its initial burial. While lacquer glue has been proven to be nearly impervious to water solvents, even in harsh soil conditions, and will most definitely out-last the nephrite by an almost unbelievable degree as the jade degrades around it, the lacquer glue’s only true weakness comes from its becoming brittle over time, and is thus susceptible to sideways shock. A blow from collapsing dirt or physical objects in the near vicinity in the tomb could dislodge an added-on portion to these old vessels, and this will be the case with the finial on this vessel, as will be shown in later photographs. Almost all of the fine detail in this vessel is of a secondary re-cutting and not the original tooling marks. Following what was left of the original tooled design, the restorers of the vessel many years ago followed the original design faithfully and still left enough in-situ portions to be able to accurately assess the chain of events from its original conception through to what we see today in this magnificent and detailed carving from late in the Eastern Zhou Period.

Of particular note in the above photograph is the extremely old repair to the cracking foot of the vessel and the type of repair used. We have seen this type of repair used on old Tang Dynasty to Song Dynasty pottery ware where there had been a crack in the pottery vessel, either from firing or from usage. The repair is a mixture of lacquer glue, iron filings with quartz and other rock temper. Judging from the examples we have in our possession, it is a most effective repair, albeit not the most attractive or finessed of techniques. Still, it adds tremendous authenticity to the vessel and the early time period in which it was originally repaired, re-cut and re-polished.

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

With these close ups we can further see the much cruder technology used in the initial repair to the cracking and degrading foot that would lead us to believe the first repairs were preformed approximately one thousand years ago to stabilize the jade. Most of the re-cutting and initial re-polishing of the vessel was also performed during this period, as was the secondary gold re-gilding. This will become much more clear in the following photos and especially in part three of the series, as we get to most of the microscopic photographs. The following three photos are of a similar type of repair performed on an old Tang-Song Dynasty wine jar.

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

Above Photo Taken with Canon EOS XSi Using MPE 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Macro Lens At 3X

The above photographs show very clearly the type of repair that was performed on both the pottery vessel and the jade vessel, and the following pictures will show the Macro and microscopic pictures of the repair on the nephrite vessel. The large, late Eastern Zhou nephrite jade vessel and this old wine vessel are the only two pieces we have come across with this type of repair. Almost all of our jade and pottery items show a much higher finesse in their repairs, which leads us to believe both vessels were stabilized at approximately the same period in time, and re-buried most likely during the Mongol invasion period, some seven hundred-plus years ago. This is also borne out by the re-working of the vessel and the lacquer applied inside of the re-cutting of the designs, covered in a gold gilding much the same as some of the finest incised Ding pottery of the Song Dynasty, which was a mixture of garlic juice and gold. Not being the most secure of ways to gild a piece, as it does wear rather easily, still some fine examples exist, and by using the mercury-and-gold firing method, the re-applied gold gilding would most likely have burned off the lacquer used inside the re-cut designs, which would have given the gold and garlic mixture a fine surface to adhere to. Having lost most of the lacquer and re-gilding on the jade vessel leads us also to believe the second burial was performed ages ago, and this will become more clear as we continue.

Above Two Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSi Using MPE 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Macro Lens at 3X

Above Photo Taken with Canon EOS XSi at 35X Microscopic Power

In the three above photographs, the lacquer and temper used to fix the already degraded jade can be easily identified as the same type of repair as was used on the pottery wine vessel. The main difference we find in the two repairs is with the one on the jade vessel. On the jade, it appears as if it was most likely gold gilt at the time of repair, and being that it was more exposed to the elements, it underwent a greater amount of weathering and degradation in the secondary burial. Both the initial burial during the late Eastern Zhou Period and the secondary burial were quite obviously under unusual conditions of harshness. To have Khotan nephrite jade degrade as this vessel did during both burials could only be explained by very high moisture and extreme soil conditions which were either highly acidic or highly alkaline. The third burial of this amazing vessel was much more gentle on the jade, as will be seen in coming photographs. Please note the malachite deposits in all three above photographs where the copper impurities which were either mixed with the temper or were part of the gold gilt have degraded over the centuries. The iron oxidation of the jade is clearly seen in all of the photographs used in part one and part two of this series. It is readily observable that the iron oxidation occurred mostly from the first burial as it so permeates the vessel and underlies all repairs. This will occur sometimes if a river has changed course during the period of burial and floods the tomb with oxygenated water over long periods of time. Again, these types of conditions would attack the weakest and most porous portion of the nephrite to the greatest degree. The lack of lacquer and gold gilt remaining on the vessel attest to the harsh conditions of the secondary burial which, under normal conditions, should have been much better preserved in the lacquer at least, with the gold gilding taking the brunt of the degradation.

Above Two Photos Taken with Canon EOS XSi Under 35X Microscopic Power

To end up this second part of the three-part series on this incredible 2,300- year-old-plus jade vessel, we chose a little fun with the above two photographs showing parts of the dragon on the side of the lid of the vessel, under 35X microscopic power. While part three to come will be loaded with these types of images, we wanted to give a little extra send-off to part two, and if you are an aficionado of ancient archaic jades, as we obviously are, then this bit of eye candy showing the degraded Khotan-Hetian jade with its botryoidal looking pieces missing – the iron oxidized jade – the old original tooling – the secondary tooling with the old lacquer, and bits of thousand-year-old re-gilt gold. Hopefully the last part in this series will be finished in a couple of weeks, God willing and the creek don’t rise.

David Fredericks  –  Yulongwei

Antiquities, Plus…

Your email: