| Original Message: Re: Re: The pleasures of jade 3 |
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Again, I want to emphasize that the pleasure lies in the way the carver works the surface and the structure of the stone. Though ancient carvers used "primitive" tools they achieved polished surfaces that you never find in the modern fakes (just think of that Hongshan piece, for instance). And when they carved a line, though it may have taken days to incise, they weren't satisfied until it looked as though it was carved in a single cut. Here's a close-up of the "swoosh" on a Han dynasty cicada; see how the line looks so effortless when it's actually the result of endless grinding and polishing. There's some nice oxidization biting into it, too. And finally, another nice jade from more recent times - the Qing dynasty, eighteenth century. Ten years or so ago, Sotheby's were auctioning off a number of small jades from the Alsdorf collection, and it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss (the prices were about a tenth of what they would be today just ten years later). I bought several pieces and gave most of them away; the one I kept is of a cat and a kitten, beautifully carved with a more advanced technology but still recognizably in the same tradition as the Hongshan piece more than 5,000 years before. What unites them all, I think, is the respect of the carver for the stone - look at how the Qing carving incorporates the russet tinge into the overall composition. You just don't find that -ever - in the reproductions. Cheers, Will All rights reserved by Bead Collector Network and its users |
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