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| Puzzling! |
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Posted By: Bill Posted Date: Jan 31, 2009 (11:19 PM) |
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Message I have to admit that I am simply not expert enough to say whether the piece posted here by Mircea is archaic or not. However I was puzzled with several things here: (1) It is very possible this piece may be indeed made in the Shang dynasty as Micea stated. However, so far I had not seen any evidence or references being provided in supporting his opinion. The only evidence so far provided by him was "this jade carving has an illustrious provenance and was purchased in Beijing between 1907 to 1909." If this is indeed true, that can only show that it was indeed as old as 1907 - 1909 and nothing else. (2) The only two citations Micea used in supporting the authenticity of his piece, seems to me, are from his own book. The citation he quoted from Rawson's book did not seem to have anything to do with providing supports for his attribution. Therefore, basically if I understand correctly, we really have not seen any evidence or reference offered by Mircea in his attribution of this piece as that of Shang dynasty except his own professional opinion. Please do not misunderstand me, I am not trying to show any disrespect to his expertise in jade. I am simply puzzled that while he believed he could attribute a jade piece based on his opinion alone (citing from his own book is basically citing his own opinion) while at the same time he asked Randy to: "I challenge you to support your belief. For the benefit of the learning process, please present in an academic fashion, were you derived your knowledge, with citation of books, publications (with chapter, page number) etc." May be he can do the same as he requested Randy to do? (3) Finally, I was also puzzled with his statement: "I believe you are influenced by posting of many low end items that appear on the Forum." I am not sure if he meant this forum or the other forum. Either way, I guess I would be guilty in being one of the people who had posted many low end items in this or the other forum. However, how did that have anything to do with Randy's expertise in jade? I am sorry I do not understand the connection between the two. Yes, I have seen nephrite jade with this type of brown yellowish color that almost looks like serpentine but were actually nephrite. However that did not make them authentic Shang jades. I am puzzled with whether Mircea had performed any testing in confirming whether this piece was indeed made of nephrite or he just assumed that it was made of nephrite based on its illustrated provenance. The word nephrite was never used in the sales listing of this piece (see link http://fineartamerica.com/featured/translucent-yellow-sonorous-jade-used-as-musical-instrument-ancient-lapidary-artist.html) and it was simply described as Translucent yellow sonorous jade. In China, jade can be anything including serpentine or Dushan jade. Therefore while I cannot prove that this piece is not that of Shang dynasty I have a hard time in believing that it was indeed an authentic Shang dynasty piece. The quality and type of its material simply fails to convince me. For me to spend $ 3,000 to buy such a piece, I would require more evidence than just its illustrious provenance. I also find the timing of this posting coincides with the sales of such a piece (or a piece looks exactly like it) extremely disturbing. Again, I am not trying to be disrespectful to anybody including Mircea and I hope my opinion would not deter him from his continued participation in this forum. I believe his recent involvements in this forum did bring a lot of energy back to the jade discussions and for that I am grateful. I am almost sure there would be a lot we can learn from him in the future. Bill Post a Response |
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