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

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Gemological & Geological Jade Articles, Jades Of Antiquity. 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.