Jade leaf pendant: the blade cut in volume, folded into two domed lobes on either side of a hollowed vein. Knotted to a strand of green and black beads.
The hole is drilled in the stalk, so the leaf hangs the way it grows. It is the easiest piece in the set to give: no sign, no figure, nothing to interpret.
The beads of the strand are not announced as jade, and the page says so. The stone unties, so it weighs: the record will be published. Why I write it down.
A jade leaf pendant: the blade is cut in volume and folds into two domed lobes on either side of a hollowed vein. The tip droops, and the stalk is drilled for the thread. It is knotted to a strand of green and black beads.
In four lines
A leaf cut in volume, not punched out of a flat plaque.
Two domed lobes on either side of a hollowed vein.
The stalk is drilled: the leaf hangs the right way up.
The record will be published: the stone unties, so it weighs.
A leaf in volume, not a silhouette
Many leaf pendants are flat plaques punched into the shape of a leaf, with a few veins scratched on top. This one is worked through its thickness: both halves of the blade are domed and rise on either side of a vein hollowed like a gutter, exactly as a real leaf folds.
The back is not flat either, it follows the opposite hollow. Held in the hand the piece has the curve of a small shell, and it settles naturally against the sternum instead of gaping.
The tip droops slightly, which is more than a stylistic effect: the hole is drilled in the stalk, so the leaf hangs the way it grows, and not upside down as on many cheap models.
A simple motif, and deliberately so
There is no dragon here, no deity, no character. It is a plant object, smooth and with no explicit message, and it is probably the easiest piece in the set to give: no risk of picking the wrong sign, the wrong religion or the wrong symbol.
The leaf remains a loaded motif in Chinese tradition, though, for a reason of language: the word that names it is pronounced like the one that means a trade, an enterprise, the work one carries on. Hence the habit of giving a jade leaf for a new post.
That kind of link rests on homophony, not on a property of the plant or of the stone. I report it as a custom, and the panel below says so along with the others. The motifs most often found on these stones.
What the stone is, and what remains to be established
The green is deep in the hollow of the vein, where the stone is thickest, and becomes distinctly lighter along the edge of the lobes. That way of lightening where the material thins is the signature of a translucent stone, and this shape shows it very well.
It is not enough to conclude, though. What is sold under the name jade is very often serpentine or dyed quartzite, which also let the light through. Only the density settles it without a laboratory.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the leaf 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 leaf, a tradeThe word for leaf is pronounced like the one that means the work, the trade, the enterprise one carries on. Hence the habit of giving a jade leaf for a new post or for setting up on one's own. The link is in the language, not in the plant.
Golden branch and jade leafThe expression once named the children of the imperial house, then by extension any noble birth. It is still in use today, often with irony, to speak of someone raised in cotton wool.
What grows backThe leaf falls and returns: it is one of the few plant motifs whose reading rests on observation rather than on a pun. It is lent a sense of resumption and of cycle, shared with many other cultures.
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.
Shipped within 48 hours of your order being confirmed, for delivery within 14 days from the day it ships. I keep no buffer stock, and I will not promise a date I cannot meet.
Shipping Costs
€6.99 no matter the destination, and free on orders of €47 or more to France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. The exact amount shows in your cart before you pay.
The Packaging, and Why It Matters
Every piece leaves in its own pouch, kept apart from the others. This is not about presentation: jade’s hardness is ordinary, 6 to 6.5 for nephrite and 6.5 to 7 for jadeite, and the quartz in everyday dust rates 7. Two pieces of jewelry that travel together arrive scratched.
Fourteen Days to Change Your Mind
No reason needed. One email opens a return, and there is no form to fill out. Return shipping 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 cleaner, no steam, no solvent, no heat source. The reason is not caution for its own sake: the treatment status of my pieces is undetermined. My supplier cannot tell me, and the weighing establishes the mineral without saying anything about a possible resin impregnation. Resin withstands neither heat nor solvents, so every piece is handled as though it might contain some. The treatment information page.
The Scratch, and Where It Comes From
Jade is tough, meaning very hard to break: its structure of interlocking crystals resists cracking, and that is what made it possible to turn it into axes 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 rates 7, and that is what dulls a jade, not impacts. The difference between the two.
Day to Day
Put the piece on after perfume and lotion, never before. Take it off for housework, gardening, and sports, where the hard knocks happen. Store each piece on its own, in its pouch. On a strand of beads, the thread wears out before the stone does: it gets restrung, and there is nothing abnormal about that.
My name is Jade. I am French, from Morbihan in Brittany, and I live in Tallinn. I choose the pieces and have them set: I mine nothing, I carve nothing, and I do not do the metalwork myself. What I bring is the sorting, and with this material the sorting decides everything.
I am not a gemologist, a lapidary, or a therapist, and I do not claim to be.
I Weigh, I Do Not 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, and not every piece. I never handle the piece that ships to you, and I would rather say so plainly than let anyone believe otherwise. The method, with its three limitations.
What I Cannot Know
The treatment status of my pieces. My supplier cannot tell me, and neither can the scale: it establishes the mineral, not the resin impregnation. Only laboratory infrared spectroscopy would settle the question, and I do not have that testing done. So you will never read “jadeite A”, “type A” or “untreated” on this site. The information page.
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 October 7, 2016. What applies today dates from April 8, 2021: the US Treasury sanctioned Myanma Gems Enterprise, the state-owned company that controls the Burmese gem trade. So there is no blanket ban, but an American is not allowed to do business with that entity, and a stone never tells you where it has been. I run one supply chain for ten markets, and it has to stand up to the strictest one. When an origin is not confirmed to me in writing, the listing does not state it. My origin policy.
