The prominence of the jade stone was emphasised during the fifth century BC, when the Chinese philosopher Confucius associated it with virtues such as beauty, gentleness and benevolence, and announced that he considered the stone one of the pillars of Chinese civilisation.
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Later on, jade became a symbol of purity in China, and pendants were placed around the necks of the deceased in order to cleanse them before entering the kingdom of the immortals. During the Han dynasty, it was popular to bury emperors in suits of jade woven together with gold – that belonging to the ruler Zhongshan from the 2nd century BC is said to contain 2,498 pieces of jade, clearly signalling his wealth and importance.
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Jade is not only found in Asia: although there are notable deposits in northern Myanmar and China’s Xinjiang province, there are also veins in Guatemala, Brazil, California, Canada and New Zealand. Subsequently, jade has been or still is an important material to Mayan, Aztec, American Indian and Māori populations as well as many other civilisations across the world. In China today, jade still makes an honorary appearance on important objects, such as on the medals for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
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But what makes this stone so precious, and what exactly characterises it? To begin, jade is not systematically green, contrary to what many people think. Composed of two distinct minerals – nephritis and jadeite, to be specific – its colour can vary from creamy white to intense black, pink or mauve, depending on the salt it contains. Cold to the touch and opaque but with an almost translucent quality, jade is especially remarkable for its resistance. In fact, it used to be a common material for fashioning axe blades. However, it can be polished beautifully and reveals its best material qualities through sculpture.
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Worshipped since time immemorial, used as a sacred stone in cult objects and fashioned into jewellery, jade has now found its way to some of the most illustrious jewellers in the world. Cartier had created ornaments, brooches and famous necklaces made of jade, such as the one commissioned by the American Barbara Hutton that consisted of 29 balls of imperial jadeite set with diamonds, gold plate and rubies. Pieces like this inevitably grab the interest of great collectors, who then jostle to buy pieces made of imperial jade. Currently, it is considered one of the most expensive gems in the world.
To get a better idea of this phenomenon, it is useful to look back at auction history. In 1999, Christie’s Hong Kong sold a jade bracelet for about US$2.5 million (£1.93 mil). In 2013, an eighteenth-century Chinese statuette made of carved pale celadon jade reached €1.5 million (£1.3 mil) in London. Later the same year, a jade imperial seal from the Qianlong period (1736-1795) was auctioned for US$3.4 million (£2.62 mil) at Sotheby’s New York.
However, the record is held by a white jade seal from the Qianlong period, which soared to a whopping US$12.2 million (£9.24 mil) in Hong Kong in 2010. These colossal sums illustrate the proverb that ‘anything rare is expensive’ but also prove that jade is just as precious today as it was in centuries past. Explore more articles with Barnebys Magazine
