Jewelry Lovers

In jade is sealed the alliance between man and gemstone through thousands of years. Its use was not confined only to man’s ornamental and protective needs in the form of jewelry and amulets, but also served him in the early Stone Age as one of the elementary implements of his culture—as tools for hammering, splitting, and cutting. Although of only moderate hardness (6.5-7), it is of unyielding toughness, and is even capable of denting steel, so that for him it was a weapon in his struggle for existence against raw nature, and later became the preferred cult stone for rendering thanks to the gods. Thus, graves excavated in Mexico have yielded mainly ritual objects of great artistic skill, whence the conclusion may be drawn that chalchihuitl (= jadeite) was already held in highest esteem in the blossoming cultures of the Central American Indians.

In the gemstone trade two different minerals fall under the general term “jade,” namely, nephrite and jadeite. The ornamental stone nephrite occurs as intercalations in serpentine rocks and in crystalline schists which originated from eruptive rocks low in silica; the same holds true for the jadeite of Burma. Here the acid granitic magma, penetrated by ultrabasic serpentine, suffered a desilication whereby the quartz segregated out and the greater part of the albite was converted into jadeite. Wherever chromium happened to be present, the highly prized emerald green Imperial Jade resulted. The precious translucent material is known in numerous delicate colorings. It is usually a soft white (”mutton-fat” jade) with an almost imperceptible pastel hint, and often veined and flecked with emerald green traces of chromic acid, but a stronger concentration of chromium is indicated by the variable green tones, for whose loveliest emerald-green hue enormous sums are paid in the Far East. As a result of tinting by iron, jadeite becomes apple-green to yellowish and on through orange to brown, and, when manganese is present, lavender blue to violet. At restricted localized places the chrome-rich jadeite has been able to color the adjacent albite. After extensive analysis, this shining stone of rice-paddy green, called maw-sit-sit, by the local people, was recognized by the author, as an independent ornamental stone in its own right and was named “jade-albite.” The color of nephrite is mainly a dark leek to spinach green, and is imparted by iron.

Jade beds are found in many parts of the world, and deposits of some commercial importance occur in North America and New Zealand. But it is to Burma, once again, that the crown is due, the most prolific jadeite mines lying in the northern part of the country round Tawmaw and along the precipitous slopes of the Uru River. Among brecciated boulders, in so-called conglomerate accumulations, it is found in geologically recent river deposits relatively close beneath the surface. While the favor of the gods is implored with flowers, paper flags, and fruits, men toil with crowbars, picks, and patient confidence during the six months’ dry season from October to April to separate the rare jade blocks from the barren detritus. From Mogaung, where the official inspector submits them to a sun test to ascertain their color and translucency, and estimates their value, most of the stones travel down the Irrawaddy River, through Rangoon, and over the sea to eastern countries. Their destination is Hong Kong where, in small workshops down twisting alleys, to the continuous accompaniment of pedaling, the masters of jade art carve their figures on cutting wheels charged with finest diamond dust.

Through the handing down over hundreds of years, experience and skill have reached maturity in these artists. In classical Chinese art the precious stone yu is the earthly embodiment of the cosmic principle which regulates the spiritual, ethical, and social life in the Middle Kingdom. Purity, permanence, virtue, and strength inherent in the “jewel of heaven” are given with awesome care a form subordinated in humility to that granted by Nature: the proportioned harmony of color and structure as well as their irregularities are incorporated into the fashioning of the shape, so that everything bestowed by the Creator is used to His glory. Guided by nothing but intuition and with a sensitive feeling for the nature of each stone, the carver first of all sketches the envisaged model on the flat stone; then in many weeks of labor, he shapes a work of art which, by its inherited motifs, continues the living tradition of his ancestors.

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