Han Dynasty – Three Matching White to Celadon Jade Funeral Vessels
Steve & Kathleen Martinek Collection
Former: Fredericks-McIntire Collection
Measurements Center Vessel: 12″ Height X 6″ Width X 2-1/2 ” Depth
Measurements Left Vessel: 10-1/2″ Height X 4-1/2″ Width X 2-1/4″ Depth
Measurements Right Vessel: 10-3/4″ Height X 4-1/2″ Width X 2-3/4″ Depth
These absolutely exquisite Later Han Dynasty Vessels (206 BCE – 220 CE) were most likely originally crafted for the Imperial family, and show all the traits known to the later Han Dynastic master carvers of nephrite jade. All three were crafted from the same large ‘mother stone’ as can easily be detected in their similar colors, translucency and patterning of the already degrading, purposefully chosen, white ‘mutton fat’ nephrite that flows throughout each of the vessels. We have never examined a set of archaic jade vessels so intricately and masterfully carved, with such attention paid to the exacting details and finish as the three featured above. While the common cut-off point for archaic jades lies unofficially at the 2,000 year-old mark, we believe these vessels were made in the later period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, as the workmanship, while still retaining some design aspects of the earlier Warring States Period and the Western Han Dynastic period, exhibit new design features not found in the older styles. In the largest vessel, we find the familiar ‘spiral patterns’ (also known in China as ‘tadpole’ patterns) as the main motif on the side panels, with a more archaic style Leiwen pattern around the top portion of the vessel and on the bottom edge of the lid. The motifs for the dragon handles are of a type of later Han style, while the dragon on the lid is also a type seen from the early Han Dynasty, and with its drilled, curling tail, even into the Warring States Period. In the left vessel we see a flower motif, on both the lid and the two handles, with exquisite piercing and attention to detail rarely seen in earlier time periods. The flowing flower patterns on the outside panels of this vessel are lightly incised and yet fluid in appearance. On the right vessel, we find the lid motif is of a very delicate Red Bird of the South, or Fenghuang (Phoenix), but we have Elephant style handles, similar to the Eastern Zhou Period, yet far more advanced stylistically, and more than rival the wonderful elephant and dragon handles of the Ming and Qing Dynasty periods. We consider these exquisite tooling efforts a furthering of the aforementioned design features and a most definite sign of continued advancement in the unbroken line of innovation, which started in China and continued unabated for at least five to six thousand years prior to when these vessels were made. For this reason, even though they may fall slightly into the CE range, we still strongly consider these magnificent vessels to be archaic, and not archaistic in nature. These vessels could well be some of last phenomenal, final advancements, stylistically, that were ever produced during the original period of uninterrupted Chinese genius which truly defines the archaic period of jade carving mastery.
Having an extreme, in-depth knowledge of these vessels, as they were originally in the the Fredericks-McIntire Collection for years prior to their sale, these were one of the first sets of archaic jade vessels we had ever acquired, and were subsequently among the first large archaic jade items we had cleaned throughly so we could better understand the damaged areas that were visible under the last repairs and coatings. Unfortunately, we did not take photographs of the vessels years ago, before we cleaned them, but as this will be another specific, in-depth article showing the ancient degradation, tooling marks, and repairs to these magnificent vessels, we will be able to show with the accompanying Macro and microscopic photography, the sequential ages for different burial periods and repairs. These three vessels have been shown at all four of our previous jade exhibits, before thousands of viewers, including our last Jade Through The Ages Show, and have been viewed by many of the world’s finest jade and jadeite geologists, aficionados, miners and some of today’s finest modern jade sculptors. As with all true masterpieces of archaic jade, these vessels have taught us much over the years, and indeed continue to teach me even more every time I view them under microscopic conditions (just as they did again while preparing this article). Even though we will do our best to portray some of these fabulous nuances in this article, they can only be truly studied, admired, and appreciated to satisfaction in person.
With these three different photographs above, we will be explaining more of the marvelous nephrite specimen components, unique design elements and structural degradation, damage and repairs that occur to authentic ancient jade items which have been burial artifacts on more than one occasion. These are just some of the areas we will be exploring in depth with the Macro and microscopic photos to come, and even though this will be the longest single article we have ever produced here on Timeless Jade, and with the most photographs, we well could have made it much, much longer, as there are literally thousands of unique areas on each and every one of the vessels. In the first close-up photograph above, we can see the same type of flowing flower motif as on the vessel with the flower lid, but the most impressive portion of this vessel is, to us, the incredible mastery of the design elements of the elephant handles. The treatment of these handles, an almost ‘gargoyl-ish’ style, and the profuse detail created by this master carver of ancient jade, is in our opinion nothing less than astounding. Some of the world’s finest modern carvers have also commented on this aspect, and the exquisite beauty of the flower handles, with their deep piercing and wonderful curling petals, calling them masterpieces of the ancient art. In both of the shorter vessels, we start to see particular aspects of Buddhistic influence beginning to appear as well, in both the flowers and the lotus blossom panels on the bottom of the vessel with the Fenghuang top, and the lotus petals on the top and bottom of the vessel with the flower top. As we will start to see with much more clarity in all the Macro and microscopic photographs to follow, the depth of degradation and types of original tooling marks still to be found in some places on the vessels will help to lead us securely to the archaic dating. In the second photograph above, we find an area on the flower-lidded vessel that shows an old repair (which would not come off with acetone and high pressure cleaning), but not the oldest repair, by far. This area was probably repaired with a lacquer glue, and in a rather quick fashion, to hide a further cracking of the vessel from a different period of extended burial than the earliest ones we will be showing later in the article. In the third photo above, we find an area of one of the flower handles which has the look of a mutton fat jade to the petal itself. This is part of the nephrite component which was purposely chosen by the master who picked this particular specimen from which to create all three vessels. It should be of no surprise to anyone with a basic knowledge of the history of jade carving from the Neolithic Period clear through to modern days in China, that the original “Stone Of Heaven” has always been used to show off its many different characteristics, and to highlight these wonderful differing structural qualities in the masterpieces of old. Yes, the White ‘Imperial’ Jade (whether mutton fat or translucent) has been desirable through different parts of China’s history, including the Han Dynasty, but throughout time, the Chinese seemed to prefer other aspects of the stone, and especially the striated and rarer characteristics that jade presents, and which, through every age, have been admired and revered. This particular nephrite stone must have been chosen for the flowing, translucent, light celadon colors running through the already-degrading white nephrite. Because of the uniqueness of its character and the power such vessels would convey (this incorporation of naturally degrading white nephrite into important figures and vessels has been well established during the Han Dynasty), these vessels must have been extremely cherished items when they were first made. We will be doing an article this Fall showing an exquisite Han Dynasty Horse in our collection made just this way, with green and degrading white jade.
In the three Macro photographs above, we see at 1X, 2X and 3X respectively, an extremely old, dark, red-lacquer-repaired area on the bottom of the flower-lidded vessel. This area shows all the true, original degradation which has occurred to the jade since the early Han Dynastic period. While the earliest re-cutting marks can best be seen in the first photograph above (as the upper two lines to the left of the lacquer-repaired crack, and the lowest line to either side, below the chipped-out area lying to right of the old lacquer repair), the original (middle) line crossing the repair is much more degraded, as this area (as in all successive re-cutting and re-polishing attempts) must have been considered too fragile to re-work. Because of the natural degradation to these re-cut areas of the design, we know the item had to have seen long-term re-burial, as we will show in many successive photos. As this is one of the group of oldest original repairs (of the several different time-eras during which these vessels have undergone repairs), we would consider them to have been performed sometime between the Song Dynasty to very early Ming Dynasty period, with the earliest dating more likely, in our opinion. This deep degradation has occurred in one of the original lightly- degraded white jade areas, as described above, and subsequently endured the greatest degree of natural breakdown of the nephrite components.
With these three Macro photographs above, taken at 1X, 2X and 3X respectively, we are looking at the latest black-lacquer repair, estimated to be in the late Qing Dynasty or early Republic Period (please note the silica, or quartz temper added to the lacquer in all three photos). It is in an area at the bottom of the flower-top vessel, as seen in the first photo, and shown in the close-up photograph in the fifth photo. At the bottom of the vessel, this crack meets up with the older repaired crack (shown in the first set of Macro photos), and this side most assuredly runs cross-grain to the natural flowing structure of the jade, best seen in the first photo above. The three photos here are of a place where the naturally occurring degraded white jade meets with a much harder mutton fat white jade, and adjoins to the translucent celadon (also, seen best in photo one). This area could be a re-cracking of the original that just needed additional repair, but much more likely was part of spreading crack that had continued, following the initial trauma shock which caused the vessel to break in the first place. All three vessels will be shown to have had the same massive trauma breakage and original repairs at an early date. Subsequent repairs were needed at differing times because the first damage must have precipitated additional hairline fractures which continued to grow after later burial, further shocks, and the expansion and contraction effects of freezing and thawing. All modern jade artists know of these natural fracture zones in almost all nephrite, and have to assure they cut and work the stone so as to not cause too much vibration to these natural areas of chatoyancy, or risk cracking the nephrite while working it. All three of these vessels are extremely thin-walled and deeply hollowed, which upon burial, put them immediately at extreme risk of damage over long periods of time. The fact that most of the major fractures in all three vessels cross these naturally-occurring fracture zones in the jade, tells us much about the type of sideways force they had to have endured to break the way they did. Whether by earthquake, falling beams of wood in the tomb, or some other violent event, something caused all three vessels to fracture at a point in time long ago (and most assuredly they would have been originally placed in close proximity in the first tomb). Under microscopic conditions, the fracture, as shown in the area above, came from the same shock inflicted on the other side of the vessel, but probably developed fully at a later date than the one shown in the first Macro photos. The degradation following the fracture lines is less on the side above, and is not all accounted for by the solidity of the stone (even in the more naturally degraded white portions of this crack, there is not the degree of degradation as seen on the other side).
In the two photographs above, we are looking at the ancient dark red lacquer repairs on the vessel with the fenghuang lid and the elephant handles (the lighter red coloring will be explained later in the microscopic photographs). When we first received these three vessels, they were covered in the obligatory mud that seems to be a mandatory treatment on anything restored in China. We suppose it is a cultural thing, and has to do with artistic license on the restoration of truly authentic items, much as it does in the final preparations of total replications. Under this mud, we found new red coloring which came off quickly in acetone. What remained after spraying with our high pressure water gun was all original. However, in this article, you will see bits of remaining newer wax (and what it looks like after being in acetone) and a tiny piece of the last fake red that was put on the vessels (as a sort of ‘dressing’ under the mud) in some of the microscopic photos to follow. In the first photograph above, we see the original red, cinnabar-stained lacquer-repair to the top rim area of the elephant-handled vessel. These were extremely beautifully-repaired cracks when they were originally done some approximately 500-1,000 years ago. In the second photo above, we are looking down into the same vessel and seeing the cross-grained cracking which had to have occurred from a violent shock, as nephrite just does not break this way naturally, and because of its very fibrous nature will not crack at all (even moving up to the surface from 30 miles below, where it forms) unless it is subjected to massive tectonic pressures. All of these vessels were originally masterfully designed and prepared so that all the natural fissures ran vertically – this would make the core drilling and the snapping-off of the cores (to prepare the insides for the finishing process) much easier, and would not have damaged the vessel under the low vibrational turning-and-snapping-off of the cores in the original-style drilling. If the stone had been worked with the grain going ‘sideways’, the pieces could not have withstood the process; ancient Chinese masters knew of this for millennia before these vessels were made. To manifest the type of cross-grain cracking we see in these and other photos to come required a massive amount of pressure (even on these thinly walled vessels), and the fact that they held together attests to the marvelous ability of nephrite jade to hold up under such enormous stress. Any other type of stone, such as quartz or even jadeite, would most likely have shattered to pieces under such pressure, but the nephrite jade vessels held together so repairs could be made and the exquisite examples still be shown almost 2,000 years after their creation.
In the three Macro photographs above (taken at 1X, 2X and 3X), we are looking at a portion of the largest vessel, with the dragon motifs, taken near the bottom of the vessel as seen in the first two photographs of this article. The entire side of this magnificent vessel was originally almost totally translucent, light celadon in color with a beautiful, partially-degraded white mutton-fat, elongated area to the viewer’s left. It must have originally made a stunning finished piece with this mutton-fat counterpart and the larger mutton-fat area on the opposite side, contrasting with the translucent light celadon. Some of the tooling marks seen in all three photos above are re-cuts, and some of the tips of these re-cut designs are original. What we find most fascinating about this area is the way the massive shock broke this section of the vessel horizontally, while the rest of this vessel broke vertically. In fact, it is the only one of the three vessels that broke completely, and was restored originally from two pieces. The vertical break on this vessel is so ‘clean’ and was repaired originally so tightly with the old dark red lacquer glue, that it was impossible to tell it was there until the vessel was cleaned. The original impact point seems to be just to the right of the pictures above and was what caused the clean, full, vertical break and the horizontal fracture running off from it. The point-of-impact breakage will be shown in the following three Macro lens photos. As can be seen in the first photo above, this area was where the white mutton-fat jade met the celadon (as seen in the top right corner of the photo). Also of note is the spreading, brown degradation to the original break, best seen in photos one and two above. This means that the vessel lay broken, and the degradation to the crack had been picking up soil intrusions in the shattered area of the less-tightly-fibered, partially-degraded mutton fat portion of the original stone, for a long time before the vessel was first uncovered. This is only produced by extended time in burial conditions, as is all the through-degradation seen on all three of the vessels. We have never seen this type of deep, through-degradation on any item from the Liao or Song Dynasty, and certainly never from the Ming to Qing Dynasty. Degradation occurs in true burial objects from those periods and will vary with soil conditions and moisture content from the burial area, but after viewing thousands of specimens under microscopic conditions, we have never seen deep, through-penetration except on true archaic pieces. This authentic through-degradation can not be achieved by the modern replicators using even the most caustic of acids or alkalis, and certainly not by fire burning. The black spots in the old dark red lacquer repair are the start of manganese growth, building up on top of the old lacquer glue repair, and are another indication of an extremely old repair (as will be explained with further microscopic photographs).
In the three Macro photos above (taken at 1X, 2X and 3X), we are looking at what we believe is the main impact spot that caused this vessel to break in half and send the side-fracture off horizontally. My personal belief, after studying these vessels over the years, is that some sort of earth tremor had occurred in the vicinity of the original burial. This earth tremor caused the vessels to fall over on their sides, and whatever struck them caused all three vessels to break at that time, or after another not-too-much-later earth tremor. All three vessels show the major impact was to only one side of each vessel, and the extremely delicate lids were not damaged during the impact. If all three vessel had indeed fallen over prior to the impact, the lids would have fallen off, as all such vessels have extremely shallow grooving into which the lids fit. This would explain the damage to the vessels, and not the lids, because they were no longer standing upright. If they were standing upright, the major damage would have occurred to the tops of the vessels, as we have seen on other archaic vessels we own (some having their entire lids replaced, most likely during the Ming Dynasty period). (Some of these other types of vessels and the natural damage they incurred will be brought to light in future articles here on Timeless Jade). In the three photographs above, the main impact point occurred in the center of the large vessel in a place where the jade was all tightly-fibered, translucent, light celadon, progressing to a darker celadon. The piece we see in the middle is actually a chip out of the vessel from the impact break, which was recovered and lacquered back into place during the original restoration. The re-polished portion seen in the first photograph above is part of the last re-cutting and re-polishing efforts from approximately the late Qing Dynasty era, as some remnants of white re-cutting marks still show in some of the re-tooling of the spiral, or tadpole, motifs on the side of the vessel. Some later tooling marks (most likely modern era) can be found in a few places, most notably of the ‘feathers’ on the dragon handles, but these are minor touch-ups and very few exist on any of the vessels. The great majority of re-polishing marks over all the vessels have the smoothed, aged look of hand re-polished late Qing Dynasty jade, with natural wear evident since the vessels were last re-polished. In all three photos above, we can see the obvious re-tooling marks, yet in the center piece, which was repaired, we find original degradation to the stone and original tooling marks in the curl of its spiral. The thinness of the original vessel is shown beautifully in the final photo above, where the lighting caught it just right, and the through-degradation can also be seen just to the left of the chip in the whitened, degraded jade. Also of note are the small areas around the cracking that have long ago begun the iron oxidation process of turning the light iron-impregnated celadon jade to a more red iron oxide color (as not all the red is from the old red lacquer glue – best seen in the last photo). These vessels most likely came originally from a fairly dry area such as North-Central China, due to the lack of extensive iron oxidation on the vessels (which would have been more the case in a wetter burial area). Without actually being there, one can never know for certain, but sometimes it is fun to speculate.
In these last three photographs taken with the Macro lens at 1X, 2X and 3X respectively, we are looking at old cinnabar wax that was applied to the vessels when they were first repaired with the original red lacquer glue hundreds of years ago. Initially, I believed these darker cinnabar coatings to be part of the original construction of the vessel, as it has been well-documented in the old Neolithic Periods that mercury sulfides (mostly unique to China) and iron oxides have been put into tombs on old burial jades, and indeed rubbed into and still remain on the jades and other stone items carved during those periods (the iron oxide coatings have been documented all over the world on differing artifacts, and from a suffusionist vs. diffusionist standpoint, during exactly the same time periods). (Additionally, we have another set of white Han Dynasty vessels which also show bits of original red cinnabar on one of the vessels). However, I now believe these old cinnabar coatings were added during the time of the first repair, the original vessels having been devoid of any coatings, showing only their original decorations. What we are seeing in the above three photographs will be explained better when we go to the microscopic photos to follow, but we now believe these were added to off-set the red lacquer repairs and draw the eyes away from the repaired cracks. Much of this original application of red cinnabar has since been subsequently worn off and never replaced after the vessels were recovered from their secondary burial, after initial repair. In the photographs above, we are also looking at a very tight section of the mutton fat portion of the jade, and what true, exquisite, “old polish” looks like, devoid of any artificial waxes or other unnatural coatings.
In the first three of the microscopic photographs above, we see the area on the large dragon vessel, which was broken in half, at the upper part of the vessel itself, where the crack runs through the Leiwen pattern. All you see in these photographs is original tooling marks and original degradation to the once-perfect, tightly fibered light celadon nephrite jade. The old, dark red lacquer repair can be seen in the first photograph at 10X power – the second photo at 20X power and the third at 30X power (we will be using these three different powers throughout the rest of this article, except where noted). This portion of the vessel shows the old mastery of how lacquer repairs were so exquisitely performed and re-joined back together. It also shows why we have never seen a glue that is so versatile and long-lasting, that even extended soakings in acetone or years under additional burial do not break down the bonds of this phenomenal substance. We have pieces we have soaked in acetone for two months or more, and they come out of the acetone looking just as they did when they went in. On this portion of the break, it was such a ‘clean break’ that they only had to apply the lacquer-glue to the surface of the crack, and then apply pressure. In other areas, like the top of the flower- lidded vessel, they had to spread it over the growing cracks, and the old red lacquer penetrated the already slightly re-polished, degraded jade (which is what we saw at the top of the aforementioned photograph above); this is why the entire area of repair remains, to this day, stained with the red coloring. More on this effect will come in following microscopic photographs.
In the above four photographs, taken at 10X, 20X, 30X and 45X microscopic power, we find one of the only fully matured manganese crystalline growths on any of the vessels. This portion is on the large, dragon-lidded vessel, just to the left of the horizontal crack that developed along with the vertical crack through the entire vessel. This minute manganese growth lies inside one of the spirals, just to the far left edge of the vessel, and is another reason we believe the burial area to have been somewhere in the North-Central part of China, as it is a drier area and we rarely find any manganese on pieces associated with this region. While looking at many items from the Hongshan area, we rarely find manganese growths, and when we do, they are almost always extremely small like the one above. The area above is in almost ‘in-situ’ condition, and has barely been touched by any of the restorers that have worked on these vessels. Under microscopic examination, the entire area around the one photographed above shows no signs of re-polishing or additional coating of the red cinnabar waxes. It lies in the area of the originally lightly-degraded mutton fat jade, and is extremely pitted from long-term burial. The tooling marks are original to the period when the vessel was made (estimated at between 100-200 CE). The red areas we do see in the photographs are a condition of the white mutton fat jade being penetrated by iron oxides, either before the stone was first cut or during its long internment in burial (but most likely the earlier). The dirt seen inside some of the tooling marks in the spiral could be of an age from the subsequent burials, but due to the cleanings these vessels have endured, we believe this adhered dirt is at least from the secondary burial, somewhere between 500 and 1,000 years ago. Only in the left of the first photograph above can we see some of the remnants of the old red-lacquer repair glue, as this vessel never received the red cinnabar treatment the other two vessels have undergone (particularly the one with the elephant handles). The most likely reason for this is that this larger vessel was never cracked as much as the smaller vessels were, and mainly had only the full fissure running all the way through it, and the small horizontal crack which flows into the already white portions with red-oxidized areas, which can be found on all four sides, and the inverted foot on this vessel.
In the above three microscopic photographs (shown at 10X, 20X and 30X power), we are looking at one of the top curls, coming off of one of the dragon handles on the large vessel. This is the only other small original repair to this vessel, as this portion broke off most likely during the initial trauma many years ago. The bottom tip of the degrading mutton fat jade dragon handle had broken off sometime in the past and was never repaired, but only smoothed by re-polishing. The small piece that had broken off must never have been found, as one of the restorers just shortened the tail of the dragon on the other side to match the length of the broken one. The degradation to this area is most likely secondary, as it is not as deep as is found in other portions of the celadon jade, and adds to our conclusion of a lengthy secondary burial. Natural Ming Dynasty degradation of burial jades can easily reach the degree we see above, but usually we would find it coming from a wetter area than where we believe these vessels derived. However, we do believe this surface was re-polished originally, and left alone during the third re-polishing of the vessel (most likely during the late Qing Dynasty). An original ‘starting’ drill mark can be discerned just on the inside of the lip in this curl above. These occur as the initial drilling is usually a bit more unstable and the drill ‘walks’ a bit as the hole is started, only to stabilize more as the hole gets deeper and there is more jade mass around the drill bit. The drilling techniques used to originally make these vessels was very refined and masterfully accomplished, for their age.
In these last three microscopic photographs of the large dragon motif vessel, we are looking at the tail portion of the dragon which adorns the top of the lid. The spiral tooling which made this tail was accomplished by very careful drilling, and has been noted on pieces dating from at least the Eastern Zhou Period, but the technique probably goes further back to at least the Shang Dynasty (as will be shown in a future article soon). What we are seeing in the above three photographs has been explained here in other articles, and in our last article on old beads at our Timeless Artifact web site. These spirals are first being formed with coarse grit, used to create the deep grooves into an already ‘roughed out’ design. If these coarse tooling marks are not completely abraded away in the polishing process, they will leave unseen marks at the time of first construction because the coarser grits damage the micro-structure under the surface of the nephrite jade. As the jade degrades, it is these damaged areas which receive the most penetration by water, and are therefore more susceptible to the ravages of expansion and contraction, due to freezing and thawing conditions. Thus, they will continue to degrade in a manner that often allows them to still be detected even after original polishing and subsequent re-polishings, at a later date with finer grit material. In all three photographs above, these original drilling marks can be seen at 10X, 20X and 30X power respectively.
In the four photographs above, we have a full close-up view in the first photo of the area in which the three microscopic photographs were taken. These photos were all taken on the flower-lidded vessel of one of the exquisitely pierced flower handles. This is the side in which the white, partially degraded, mutton fat jade was first incorporated into the design. The red staining on this flower is due to the cinnabar waxes being added hundreds of years ago and penetrating the degrading mutton fat jade. Its full coating having been long lost, what we see here is the remnants that have penetrated the more porous sections of the white jade. On the other side of this vessel we do not see this type of penetration on the tighter grained celadon jade flower. Even while being worn off naturally and by at least one subsequent re-polishing in the late Qing Dynastic period, the penetration went deep and still remains today. Also, some portions of the mutton fat colored jade are tighter-fibered than other parts and do not retain the coloring, as it never could penetrate as deeply as it did in the already slightly degraded portions. In the microscopic photographs above, we are looking inside the center hole of the flower at the original drill tooling marks, and the way they have degraded over extended burial periods. Some minuscule manganese crystalline growths can also be observed in the microscopic photos, and are best seen in the third photograph above. Again, this hole is one that most likely was re-polished during the initial repairing of the vessel, but not all the old tooling marks were completely removed during this process, which led to the penetration of the cinnabar-based waxes into the more porous parts of the jade.
In the four photographs above, we are showing the full, close-up photo of the flower-lid, and three microscopic photographs of the hole drilled inside the flower, on the lid of the vessel. The top, full photo shows just how fine the light celadon portion of these amazing vessels was. The translucency and flowing aspects of this phenomenal creation illuminate the delicacy and mastery of the finest work in the later Han Dynasty period, and explains why these types of vessels have been copied, to one degree or another, ever since the original Chinese masters effectively set the standards for almost all jade carving achieved by the later Dynasties. In the three microscopic photographs above, we can again see the original drill-tooling marks, only this time defined by dirt residues that have adhered to the inside drilling marks from its earliest burial. While other portions of the lid and vessel had been re-polished and coated from the damage that had occurred during the initial burial, and the secondary repair and re-polishing, along with the last modern ‘touch-up’, the hole in this amazing flower lid was left untouched during all three of the restorations of which we have evidence. The lid on this vessel alone reminds us of the finest delicate works of the Liao, Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties. It is truly a sensational piece to view all on its own, and when coupled with all the other magnificent works on all three of the vessels, they truly become a ‘tour de’ force’ of the late archaic period. As mentioned earlier in this article, they can only be fully appreciated when viewing in person and under controlled microscopic conditions.
In the three microscopic photographs above, we are looking at one of the extremely damaged areas on the lip of the inside rim on the Fenghuang-lidded and elephant-handled vessel. This vessel sustained the most damage of the three in the initial trauma event which was explained above. The small area above shows where five to six minuscule cracks all come together at the top of the lid, and were originally red- lacquer-glued together in the first restoration. The bright red spot (best seen in the last photo to the left) is all that is left of the modern re-coloring agent which was under the mud when we first acquired the vessels. The whitish, cloudy areas around the cracked portion are the remnants of the modern wax that covered everything except the exterior mud , which had been recently applied and came off immediately with soap, water and a toothbrush. The wax had turned white (as all newer waxes do in the acetone) and along with some minor recutting of some of the spirals and some of the Leiwen patterns on the large dragon vessel, show the only attempts to work on these vessels during modern times. In the cracked area above, we again see the original red lacquer repair used hundreds of years ago, and the old tooling marks left from smoothing this area, once it had been glued back together. It is easy to notice in the last photographs especially, the wear these old tooling marks have undergone, and while not original to the making of the vessel, still attest to the old age of the repair. The pitting of the original jade (under the red lacquer repair) at the top of the first photo above, exactly matches the pitting and wear we see inside the Fenghuang lid and the flower top lid.
In the last four photographs above, we have the lid in the first close up photo, of the Fenghuang, elephant-handled vessel, and three microscopic photographs (at 10X, 20X and 30X) of the different tooling marks found on the ‘feathers’ of the Fenghuang , in just one area. While the entire lid of this exquisite vessel is as wonderfully worked as the last flower topped vessel we were looking at, in these closing photos we will be concentrating on the feathers of the Phoenix as they are where the most crucial aspects for dating and authentication can be found. The lid itself is a fine mixture of tightly-fibered mutton fat white fade and extremely translucent celadon jade. All three of the microscopic photos above come from the exact same area of design on this bird. In the first photograph, we can see the white mutton fat jade more clearly, and the areas where the feathers are worn all the way through over time and re-polishing. In the second photograph, we can see (with the light dimming) a more light-celadon coloring, but our main focus is on the tooling marks that made the feathering. In the upper portion of the photo, look for the minute remnants of an original tooling mark; others can also be seen in the first microscopic photograph as faint lines just above the bottom one in the more whitened area. In the second microscopic photo above, most of the lower feather tooling marks were re-cut when the vessel was first repaired, and have semi-polished over time. However, the top two cuts to the right in this second microscopic photo at 20X power were not re-cut, and must have been deemed deep enough to leave alone by the master restorers of the period. In the third microscopic photograph above, taken at 30X power, we can see the extreme difference in the four ancient re-cut feather marks, and the one they missed; the second cut mark from the viewer’s right. This tooling mark is original to the lid, and shows much more natural wear and pitting along its edges. Also, right under the two feathers, just to the left of the original one, when looking down inside the edge you will see original tooling marks left from the piercing and smoothing of this area of the tail on the Fenghuang.
In closing, this most amazing, matching set of Eastern Han Dynasty vessels is truly a marvel of the master designers’ and carvers’ art of the late archaic period. To have been able to work with these pieces over such a long period of time has been a joy and an honor, and a learning experience that never ceases. So many more fine photographs had to be edited out to make this article of readable and enjoyable length that it is a bit of a shame, but then, there were thousands more that could have been taken. We hope you enjoyed this article.
Full photographs taken with Canon EOS XSI using Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L Lens
Macro photographs were taken with Canon EOS XSi using Canon MPE 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Lens
Microscopic photographs were taken with Canon EOS XSI under microscopic powers indicated
David Fredericks — Yulongwei