Ginkgo jade earrings: a fan shaped leaf, veined in hollow and slightly warped, cut from a tender green stone, capped with a gilt cup and topped by a small round white bead. They hang from a fine gilt hook.
In four lines
A fan shaped ginkgo leaf, veined in hollow.
A gilt cup and a small round white bead above.
The leaf is warped, not flat: it catches the light.
The record will be published: the leaf comes off, so it can be weighed.
A tree unchanged for two hundred million years
The ginkgo is what is called a living fossil: the present species is almost identical to those found in Jurassic beds, and it has no close living relative. It is the sole survivor of an entire group of plants.
Its leaf shape is unique in the whole plant kingdom: a two lobed fan, split in the middle, with no central vein. The veins leave the stalk and divide fanwise to the edge, and that is exactly what the hollowed engraving of this stone takes up.
The tree is associated in China with temples and monastery precincts, where specimens several centuries old are found. It is planted there for its longevity, not for any particular virtue.
A leaf that is not flat
It is the detail of cutting that makes the whole piece. The leaf is not a plate cut into a fan: it is slightly warped, the upper edge curving one way and the other half going the opposite way, exactly like a real dried leaf.
The consequence is optical. A flat plate returns the light in a block and looks matt; a twisted surface returns it in bands that move when the earring turns. The stone seems to change green according to the angle, without needing to be faceted.
The work is fine for a piece this size, and it is what sets it apart from cheap jade leaves, cut flat and simply scored with a few lines. Why a carving this fine stands the shock.
What the weighing will be able to establish
The leaf is drilled at the top and mounted on a looped post. It comes off by opening the loop with pliers, with no glue to break. I will do it on the example I order, never on a piece being sold.
The green is tender and lightens clearly on the edge of the lobes, where the stone thins. That way of paling where the material is lacking is the signature of a translucent stone, and it is very well checked on this shape.
It is not enough to conclude. What is sold under the name of jade is very often serpentine, around 2.6, or dyed quartzite, around 2.65, when nephrite starts at 2.90. The figure will be published with its date. What separates the two minerals, and all the earrings in the section.
Additional information
Stone
Jadeite or nephrite, not resolved
Colour
Light green
Stone shape
Carving in the round
Motif
Leaf
Mounting
Ear wire
Metal
Gold tone, alloy not stated
Setting
Drilled stone
Worn by
Women
Mineral family
Calcic amphibole, Sodium aluminium pyroxene
Hardness (Mohs)
6 to 7
Reference density
2.90 to 3.36 g/cm³
Toughness
Exceptional, interlocking crystals
Treatment
Not determined
Origin
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the ginkgo and to jade
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blending it into the rest of the page. Nothing here is demonstrated. These are customs and beliefs, which I report because they are part of the history of this stone. No piece in this shop is sold as a remedy, and I claim no effect for this one.
The tree of the templesThe ginkgo has been planted in the precincts of Chinese temples for centuries, and some specimens there are over a thousand years old. Its real longevity, and not an attributed virtue, explains its presence where duration is to be marked.
A leaf with no central veinThe veins of the ginkgo divide fanwise from the stalk, never forming a median axis. It is an archaic botanical character, and it is also what makes the leaf immediately recognisable.
Two lobes, a late imageThe split that divides the leaf in two has fed, above all in Europe and after Goethe, a reading in terms of unity and duality. It has no equivalent in the Chinese tradition, where the tree counts above all for its age.
A stone of moral virtueIn Confucian thought, jade is associated with qualities of character rather than effects on the body: uprightness, constancy, restraint. It is the best documented meaning of them all.
Dispatch within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from dispatch. I keep no stock in reserve, and I will not promise a date I could not meet.
Shipping Costs
€6.99 whatever the destination, free on orders over €47 to France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The exact amount is shown in your basket before you pay.
The Packaging, and Why It Matters
Every piece travels in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not a question of presentation: the hardness of jade is unremarkable, between 6 and 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7. Two pieces of jewellery that travel together arrive marked.
Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind
No need to give a reason. An email is enough to open a return; there is no form to fill in. Return postage is at your expense, unless the piece does not match its listing or arrives damaged.
Lukewarm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. A very soft brush for the hollows of a carving. That is all, and it is enough.
What You Must Never Do, and Why
No ultrasonic cleaners, no steam, no solvents, no heat source. This is not a precaution for show: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier does not know it, and weighing identifies the mineral without telling me anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands neither heat nor solvents, so every piece is handled as though it might contain some. The information sheet on treatments.
Scratches, and Where They Come From
Jade is tough, meaning very difficult to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it usable for axe heads in the Neolithic. Its hardness, by contrast, is unremarkable, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite. The quartz in ordinary household dust sits at 7: that is what dulls a jade, not knocks. The difference between the two.
Day to Day
Put the piece on after perfume and cream, never before. Take it off for housework, gardening and sport, where knocks against hard edges are common. Store each piece on its own, in its pouch. On a strand of beads, the thread wears out before the stone: it gets restrung, and there is nothing abnormal about that.
My name is Jade. French, from Morbihan, living in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them mounted: I mine nothing, I cut nothing, and the metalwork is not done by my hand. What I bring is the selection, and with this material that is what decides everything.
I am not a gemmologist, not a lapidary, not a therapist, and I do not claim to be.
I Weigh, I Do Not Certify
Before a listing goes online, I order one example of it for myself. When it reaches me unmounted, I weigh it in air, then suspended from a thread in a glass of water: the ratio of the two masses gives the density, and that figure separates jadeite, nephrite, serpentine and dyed quartzite without ambiguity.
One example per listing, and not every piece. I do not handle the piece that is sent to you, and I would rather write that down than let you believe otherwise. The method, with its three limits.
What I Cannot Know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier does not know it, and the scales do not tell me: they identify the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I do not have that done. So you will never read “Grade A jadeite”, “Type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information sheet.
Where My Jade Comes From
No Burmese jadeite, and the first reason is legal. Not the one you read everywhere: the JADE Act of 2008 did ban these stones in the United States, but that ban was lifted on 7 October 2016. What applies today dates from 8 April 2021: the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but a US person is not allowed to trade with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. A single supply chain serves ten markets, so it has to hold up in the most demanding of them. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin charter.
