Seal bead bracelet

I was happy that this flat seal bead came with a drilled perforation as it meant that I could use it as a center piece with other old beads to form a bracelet for casual wear.

 

Man's head, winged 4 legged beast



The seal is made from ancient carnelian and has an intaglio engraving on one side. The seller from Kashgar China said that it is a seal from the ancient silk route. I could not identify the animal and he said that it is a camel chewing on flower. On closer examination, it seemed more like a man's head, winged  4 legged beast that is indeed chewing on a flower.

 

An imprint on plasticine





The black is flat and plain and the perforation is drilled from both sides.

 

 

flat, plain back



Teamed up with dusky red, old Chinese beads  it is now one of my prized  bracelets.

 







A much prized possession !



Carefully curated pieces of jade art

 

 

I hope the title of this post doesn't sound too grand for my little jade discards. I couldn't resist using  the catchy title  even at the risk of sounding pretentious.



Carefully curated



 

Each piece measuring approximately 1.5cm to 2.3cm is  hand carved from paper thin jade. Imagine the work!

Do these curious charms or amulets  some damaged and faded merit such praise? Is it art? Is it craft or is it junk? Reader and collector, I leave it to your individual discernment and taste to judge. As for me I rate them as crafty art, these neato pieces of finely carved jade depicting bamboo, flower, plant, butterfly etc.


 

Hand carved from paper thin jade

 

There is a history of more than 100 years behind these delicate but durable carvings. The artisans  worked laboriously to turn them into all things natural and auspicious,  such as plants, weeds, butterflies, bees, flowers and what have you. These in turn are assembled into artistic hairpins and other ornaments. Through the passage of time, people no longer use old fashioned hairpins and ornaments, their   live styles and hairstyles evolving towards modern jewelery and trendy accessories.  As they fall into disuse the jade pieces become detached from their gold and silver mountings. The metals are melted down and sold or recycled but jade which is indestructible are cast aside  to be rediscovered by bargain hunters at flea marts, yard sales and junk stores. Hah ! Now I really feel like a curator, narrating the life story of these charms.

 





life story of jade charms



I have mounted them onto red templates  arranged over a black background. I must confess that I  got the idea of such a compilation from  a photo I espied on ebay. So thank you  my ebay compatriot. I sure hope your picture sold well. And hope you pardon this copy-cat-collector borrowing your design. As the cliché goes imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :)

Jade on red templates over a black background



It was finally made into a framed picture and the treasured pieces now decorates part of my wall space.

 

 

Jade charms decorate my wall



 



 

Restringing SK's chips

I got these 2 strands of chip necklaces from SK with whom I recently reconnected after some 20 years.

 

2 strands of rose quartz and aventurine chips



The top strand is aventurine and bottom strand is rose quartz. As I have not worked with chips before I turned to my teacher You tube for inspiration. This set of bracelets and earrings are the result.

Rose quartz bracelet and earrings set

 

With my interest stirred, I went on to make  another chip piece this time with aventurine, pearl and red bead accents

Aventurine chips with pearl and glass red beads

 

Thank you SK for gifting me the chips which relieved  a dull afternoon. I enjoy wearing them too.

 

pretty rose quartz bracelet

aventurine, pearl and red glass beads





Monkey arrives riding a horse.....

....or Ma Shang Feng Hou, is an auspicious phrase to usher in Lunar New Year of the Monkey 2016. The symbolic meaning of this greeting is a wish for a successful life with promotional prospects. It is also a jolly pun on the Chinese words  马上风猴 which is read as "monkey riding a swift horse" and 马上封候 which is an auspicious greeting of "Immediately you will be conferred to high rank " 

To illustrate this quibble,  I have borrowed a snuff bottle from Heng. The snuff bottle with glass overlay depicting a monkey riding astride a horse aptly highlights this good luck expression.

Monkey riding on a horse is rich in asuspicious associations



 

I have also culled 7 playful  little monkeys from  my jade box to  celebrate the festival and  to send propitious   greetings. The little imps are either bearing longevity peaches or are exercising their agility by climbing trees.

 

Auspicious monkeys 2016



More monkey treasures to join the festive cheer are  two monkey statuettes below. One is carved from coral the other from jade or soapstone, both contributions from Heng.



 Monkey statuettes





The last  monkey ornament I have is carved from a curved piece of jade or soapstone. It depicts a monkey with a deer both emblems of  prosperity for the Year of the Fire Monkey.

 

猴年吉祥

    Hóunián jíxiáng  
And
Wishing all Collectors the best of Monkey Luck 2016!





A Handful of Jade Rosettes

These  whimsical little jade rosettes also called yu-hua or jade flowers, date  from  late Qing (19th to about early 20th century)



Antique yu-hua

 

Although the rosettes are made from thin and small pieces of jade they are well shaped with attention to detail. The 12 flower blossoms are carved as rosettes with 5 petals radiating from a raised centre which incorporates  a hole. As all the pieces have only one central perforation I suspect these are likely to be hairpin components rather than buttons. 

 

likely to be hairpin components

 

Here's a circular arrangement  of 8 flowers see picture below

 

 

Circular arrangement of 8 rosettes 



 Four of the jade flowers have rounded concave petals  which have been painstakingly carved to give a scoop or tea spoon like appearance.

 

 

each petal resembles a scoop



  The largest yu-hua measures 1.4cm and the smallest 0.9cm

 

 

Largest and smallest of the floweres

 

There are 5 delicate protrusions at the petal's edge of the next flower which measures all of 1.3 cm

 

  

Spiked at the edge with delicate protrusions

 

It's a delight to hold these century old, tender jade blossoms in the palm of my hand.

 

A handful of jade flowers









Enigmatic Bead from my Peregrinations

 

Here is an intriguing bead I bought  on one of my peregrinations (thanks K for the exotic word, so appropriate for this rare bead.)




Enigmatic Bead

 

It literally landed on my lap, talk about bead affinity ! I did not choose it, it chose me :)Here I was bargaining hard with a Chinese dealer about other stuff when he pressed this bead on me to stop my bargaining. And I did acquiesce to his price. It was only back home that I realized what a great bead had come to me. Hope this does not sometime later, turn into a bead illusion when some myth busting expert comes along to dash my fantasy!

 

Illusion or Genuine Stuff



 

Well illusion or not it looks like a specimen from the Chinese Neolithic age except I have not seen a similar bead to compare. Is it from one of the early cultures like Erlitou, Majiabang or Hemudu or is it a replica from modern times? What manner of man is this? I think its a peaceful man wherever he hails from. It's unfathomable expression   magnetizes  the onlooker like the Mona Lisa !  Ooops, just joking :)

that inscrutable expression

 

I am not sure what material its fashioned from. The stone has a mottled appearance and is heavy and cold to the touch. The bead measures 2.3 cm long and is 3.6 cm across. The perforation is large, funnel shaped, drilled from both ends and tool marks are clearly visible.

 

Tool marks can be seen in the perforation



While the face is 3 dimensional, the back is flat, uncarved and very smooth.

 

flat back





Finally one more picture for viewers to enjoy and ponder !

 

A face to Enjoy and ponder !
 



Happy 2016 to Bead Lovers Everywhere!



 

Amazing and Collectible.....

.... small is beautiful...or the wonder of tiny jade carvings

Tiny



Mini  jade carvings are not always easy to decipher or comprehend. At  first glance they may look like  hopeless blobs of jade.

What carving is this ??



If you look at miniature carvings  with the naked eye you may not make out what the jade artisan is depicting. But if you peer at them with a magnifier then presto they are transformed ! My own moment of discovery came as I was searching among my scattered  stuff with a   magnifier and turned up these two gems below.

 

2 gems of jade carvings



What a bonus !

 The circular jade  measuring 1.2cm turns out to be a bird as shown in the example below

 

Neat bird carved into the circular jade



The second jade is 2 cm long is mostly white and the contrasting patch of bright green reveals a perching bird.



See the bird ??



While the value of small carvings is negligible they are in my eyes  quite amazing and collectible !

 

Amazing and collectible!



Er Dang or Ear Ornaments from the Han Dynasty

This 2 pairs of dog bone shaped beads came from a Shenzhen dealer.

Dog bone shaped beads

They are likely to be ear ornaments from the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD)

Used as ear ornaments or er dangs



The crystal pair is   2 - 2.3cm high.

Crystal ear ornaments



The red pair is either made from carnelian or glass imitating carnelian and measures 2 - 2.2cm

Glass or carnelian ?



I have come across examples of such er dang earrings displayed and documented in the Ningbo History Museum in Zhejiang Province.

glass and agate ear ornaments at the Ningbo History Museum





Describes the er dangs as imported goods.

The display also has an accompanying note describing such ornaments as "imported goods" which came by sea. Unfortunately the display  did not elaborate or give further details. It left me wondering what other early cultures used these similar ornaments and how did it spread into China as  I was under the impression that er dangs were native to China.



As an aside the Ningbo  History Museum which housed the display is one cool building which resonates with "place and memory".  Its façade  is constructed from rubble and recycled bricks that were salvaged from previous disasters. It won the 2012 Pritzker Prize  one the world's highest honors in architecture. The Museum is an exhibit and art in itself  - a  fitting place to showcase the ancient treasures  China.

 Ningbo History Museum is a building that  "resonates with place and memory"



See also my post  An Ornament from the Past which is on similar ear ornaments from the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD)

My 3 Birds

These 3 slim birds came from Myanmar. Two of the birds are of greenstone and one of light blue glass. All three are perforated from the top of the head to the tail and so are beads. Were they meant to be worn and what is their function ?



My three birds from Myanmar



 The larger of the greenstone birds is 6.5cm long. Of slender shape, its head is simply shaped with a pair of bulbous eyes, a beak and a peak at the back possibly representing a crest. The head is slightly uplifted.

 

Greenstone bird

 

The wings are carved more like a turtle shell and has three sharp slits on each side, while the perching claws are  tiny knobs.

 

3 slits at the wing side

 



The smaller bird is 5.2 cm long and is identical in design to the larger bird.

 



Smaller bird

 Here's a close up of the pair.

 

Close up



The blue glass bird is tiny measuring only 3cm. Its structural form follows that of the other two birds.

 

Blue glass bird



The tails of the 2 greenstone birds are leaf-shaped with a centre dividing line and are 3.2 cm and 2.2cm respectively. By comparison with the heads, the tails are in better condition and retain their lustre.

 

 

Long tails



 

 Bird forms of this type are also seen in Neolithic  China. There are examples of such birds in the publication Gu yu tu shi (Ancient Jade Patterns Explained) on page 067  attributed to China's New Stone age up to Shang dynasty (1600-1046 BC).

 

 During Myanmar's Pyu dynasty (around 2nd century BC to 11th century AD ), similar carnelian and agate bird forms  have also been found. Such birds have been described by collectors' as perching parrots and sometimes as parakeets. I am hoping that my birds belong to this category except the tails are much longer and I would perhaps call my birds  peacocks.

 

 

Peacocks or parakeets ?