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My opinions on Freedriek's 3 carvings

Posted By: Bill
Posted Date: Dec 17, 2008 (06:35 PM)

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Dear Freedriek:

I saw these 3 pieces of yours in the Yahoo Hongshan group and I believed I had sent a reply to you. However, since you have posted larger and better pictures here and I am at home therefore I would have more time in examining these 3 pieces closely.

I do not believe I would change my original opinions toward these three items. I believe the chance of any of them being authentic jade carvings of Hongshan culture or any neolithic cultures are very very low.

First of all, it is very difficult to find such large size of raw material to carve these pieces in neolithic times. (even in today's China, it is neither cheap or easy to find large nephrite rocks) Secondly, even if such large samples could be found, the neolithic people lacked any metal tools in dissecting (cutting) and "carving" such large jade carvings easily. Therefore, while there were indeed some large neolithic jade statues, they were quite rare and were mostly owned by museums in China. Also, most large authentic Hongshan jade carvings were made of black-skin hard nephrite that contains a large amount of ferro-actinolite. Their surface will sound like metal when hit with a metal subject. Others were made with dark green nephrite sometimes with golden specks embedded in them.

Your first piece is a large C dragon (with a pig-dragon head) connected with a goddess (?) or beast. The piece is quite cute and quite creative. However, its chicken-bone white color and brown weathering look quite suspicious. I believe inside of this piece it was made of light yellowish-green serpentine and could be scratched (with a needle or pocket knife). I believe both the chicken-bone-white color (by burning) and brown weathering were artificially created.

Although occasionally one may find a few chicken-bone-white Hongshan pieces but almost 90%+ authentic Hongshan jade carvings did not have this type of chicken bone white color. The reason is:

"The reason there are rarely chicken bone white color or severe weathering found on authentic Hongshan jade carvings is because most of the Hongshan tombs are either stone-coffin tombs in Liaoning or earth-pit tombs in Inner Mongolia where the soil is very dry. Therefore no water or moisture could get inside most of these tombs and as a result the burial jades inside were not affected by either moisture or water. That is why many authentic Hongshan jades look like they are newly-carved and are in pristine conditions when they were excavated. This always puzzles many novice Hongshan jade collectors who believe any jade carving that were five thousand years old must be badly corroded and with severe weathering." (quoted from one of my threads posted in Chichochai)

Another reason is many authentic Hongshan jade piece were made of high-quality nephrite resemble Hetian jade in both quality and appearance, such quality nephrite jade simply would not corrode easily no matter how long it would be buried in water or moist soil. Some other authentic Hongshan carving were made of bowenite, a type of serpentine with hardness of >5 and cannot be scratched; some were made of dark green nephrite (large C dragons) and again cannot be corroded easily.

In short, it is really rare to see authentic Hongshan jade carvings, large or small, with badly corrosive or chicken-bone-white surfaces. Now on Liangzhu jades, because some were burned with the deceased during burial, therefore it was quite common to see Liangzhu jades with chicken-bone-white color.

The third piece (bottom picture), a mythical beast, is bad news. It was most likely not made of nephrite, probably serpentine or some other hard stones and I believe it could be scratched easily. Its brown weathering (alteration) on its surface is dyed or artificially created. I believe you can wipe them off with acetone or some other solvent. Its inside is probably yellowish (which will be serpentine). Everything about it is wrong. Posture and form is very awkward. I recommend you not to have anything to do with it.

The middle piece, the Apollo or Sun God or boar-head Beast may be the best out of the three although I believe it is also modern. There is a 50% chance of it being made of nephrite. A scratch test should confirm it. Its reddish brown weathering is not natural and I do not believe it was the result of burial with vermillion (cinnabar). By the way, there was no official records showing cinnabar was ever found in any of the Hongshan burial sites. The eyes of this beast is willow-leaf shape and is typical for C dragon but not for jade apollo/statue which should have elongated eyes that are bulky in the middle but narrow at both ends. Its horns were also wrong. The material is also wrong. May be that is why they are trying to sell it as neolithic only but not Hongshan. But which neolithic culture? I do not believe it is good enough to be any. At best, it is a pretty good modern piece. If it was made with nephrite and the price is right, it can be a very good study piece.

It is hard to judge any jade pieces with low resolution pictures only. Without able to examine them closely, some times with a 10x loupe, it is not possible to examine the carving marks on the pieces. Therefore, any opinions expressed on them can be only 50% accurate at best.

Bill

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