White jade and mother of pearl earrings: a pierced gilt medallion set with a small mother of pearl flower, from which a magnolia bud carved in a white stone hangs. Lever back fastening.
Two white materials that do not look alike: mother of pearl irises and changes with the angle, the stone stays an even white and lets the light in.
Mother of pearl is soft and dislikes perfumes: that is the only precaution that counts on this pair. Why I write it down.
White jade and mother of pearl earrings: a gilt medallion pierced with scrollwork, set with a small white mother of pearl flower, from which a magnolia bud carved in a white stone hangs. They close with a lever back and fall straight along the neck.
In four lines
A magnolia bud carved in the round from a white stone.
A gilt medallion pierced with scrollwork, a fitted mother of pearl flower.
Lever back fastening: they cannot fall off on their own.
The record will be published, with an observation of grain as well as the figure.
Two white materials, and they do not look alike
The small flower set on the medallion is mother of pearl, that is to say the inner layer of a shell: an organic material of animal origin, not a mineral. The bud hanging below is the stone.
Side by side the difference shows: mother of pearl has iridescent reflections that change with the angle, a white turning in turn towards pink and blue, while the stone stays an even and deep white. One returns the light at the surface, the other lets it in.
Mother of pearl has its own constraints, and they are not those of jade. It is soft, it scratches with a fingernail, and it stands perfumes and lacquers badly. Avoid spraying anything onto it, that is the only precaution that counts on this pair.
The magnolia bud, and why that motif
The hanging shape is not a drop: it is a closed magnolia bud, recognisable by its overlapping petals that wrap in a spiral and by its slightly curved tip. The volume is carved from the mass, not cut out.
The magnolia is one of the commonest floral motifs in Chinese jade, for a reason of language as much as of beauty: its name enters an expression that speaks of wealth and elegance. It is often engraved together with the peony.
A white, and why the weighing is more delicate here
On a deep green, density separates cleanly: serpentine around 2.6, quartzite around 2.65, nephrite from 2.90. On a white a fourth candidate invites itself in: dolomitic marble, sold under the name of white jade, which reaches 2.85.
2.85 against 2.90, the margin is too thin to conclude on the figure alone. What you look at then is the grain in grazing light: a marble shows crystalline patches that sparkle in facets, a nephrite shows an even fibrous felting.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the magnolia 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.
A word of wealthThe Chinese name of the magnolia enters a formula of good wishes that associates the flower with opulence and elegance. As with many Chinese motifs, the link passes through the language and not through the plant.
Mother of pearl and jadeThe two materials long travelled together in furniture and scholars' objects, where mother of pearl inlaid in lacquered wood made the pale counterpart of the stones. The pairing comes from cabinetmaking.
Mutton fat whiteOld Chinese taste placed at the summit the white nephrites of Xinjiang, called mutton fat. The hierarchy reversed in the eighteenth century with the arrival of the green jadeites from Burma.
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.
Dispatched within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from dispatch. I keep no buffer stock, and I won’t promise a timeframe I couldn’t meet.
Postage charges
€6.99 to any destination, free on orders of €47 or more to France, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The exact amount appears in the cart before you pay.
The packaging, and why it matters
Every piece ships in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This isn’t about presentation: the hardness of jade is ordinary, between 6 and 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in everyday dust sits at 7. Two pieces of jewellery that travel together end up scratching each other.
Fourteen days to change your mind
With no need to explain yourself. An email is enough to open a return, there is no form to fill in. Return postage is at your expense, unless the piece doesn’t match its listing or arrives damaged.
Warm water, mild soap, a soft cloth. A very soft brush for the hollows of a carving. That’s all, and it’s enough.
What you must never do, and why
No ultrasonic cleaner, no steam, no solvent, no heat source. This isn’t a token precaution: the treatment status of my pieces is not established. My supplier doesn’t know, and weighing establishes the mineral without saying anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin tolerates 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 hard to break: its interlocking crystal structure resists fracturing, and that is why axes could be shaped from it in the Neolithic. Its hardness, on the other hand, is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite. The quartz in everyday dust sits at 7: that is what dulls 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 the knocks against corners happen. 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. I’m French, from Morbihan, and based in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them set: I mine nothing, I cut nothing, and I don’t do the metalwork myself. The work I do is the sorting, and with this material that is what decides everything.
I am neither a gemmologist, nor a lapidary, nor a therapist, and I don’t claim to be.
I weigh, I don’t certify
Before putting a reference online, I order one example of it for myself. When it reaches me unset, 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 reference, not every piece. I don’t handle the piece that goes out to you, and I would rather say so than let you believe otherwise. The method, with its three limits.
What I can’t know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier doesn’t know, and the scales say nothing about it: they establish the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only infrared spectroscopy in a laboratory would settle it, and I don’t have that done. So you will never read “jadeite A”, “type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information sheet.
Where my jade comes from
No Burmese jadeite, and the first reason is a legal one. Not the reason you read everywhere: the JADE Act of 2008 did indeed 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-owned company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no general ban, but an American is not allowed to trade with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has passed through. One single supply chain for ten markets: it has to hold up for the most demanding of them. When an origin isn’t confirmed to me in writing, the listing doesn’t state it. My sourcing policy.
