Jade phoenix pendant: a pierced green disc capped with a silver tone piece shaped as spread wings, from which a small openwork subject descends into the hole.
The Chinese fenghuang is not the Greek phoenix: it neither burns nor is reborn. The translation is a Western convenience, and the page says so.
Sold under reserve on the stone: the bright green with sharp white patches is that of dyed quartzite. Why I write it down.
A jade phoenix pendant: a pierced green disc, capped with a silver tone piece shaped as spread wings from which a small openwork subject descends to the centre of the hole. The bail is caught in the cap. It hangs long, the stone lying flat.
In four lines
A pierced disc capped with silver tone wings and an openwork subject.
The subject reaches down to the centre of the hole without blocking it.
Sold under reserve: the colour is that of dyed quartzite.
The record will stay empty if the cap does not come off without forcing.
White clouds with edges too sharp
The disc is a bright green crossed by milky white patches, and it is the boundary between the two that has to be looked at. On a nephrite the passage from green to white is gradual, because the colour follows the density of the fibres and that varies slowly.
Here the white patches have sharp, almost cut edges, and they draw streaks rather than clouds. That is what a colourant gives when it stops at a less porous zone of a granular rock: dyed quartzite is often recognised by that very pattern.
I am not saying it is certain. I am saying that is what my supplier’s photograph shows, not only mine, and that a shop selling one stone must flag it. The names that do not denote jade.
What the weighing will be able to do, and what it will not
The silver tone cap is not riveted into the stone: it grips the upper edge of the disc, and the openwork subject hangs inside the hole without touching it. On the example I order, I will try to ease it off by hand.
If it comes away without forcing, I will weigh the bare disc: quartzite sits around 2.65, nephrite starts at 2.90, and the figure will settle it without discussion. If it resists, I will not insist, and the record will stay empty and say so. The method, with its three limits.
And in every case, the weighing will say nothing about dyeing. It establishes the mineral, not what has been put into it. The treatment information sheet.
The Chinese phoenix is not the Greek one
The English word muddles two birds. The Greek phoenix burns and is reborn from its ashes. The Chinese fenghuang neither dies nor burns: it is a composite bird, peacock tail, serpent neck, cockerel beak, which appears when a reign is just and disappears when it is not.
With the dragon it forms the commonest couple of wedding iconography, the dragon for the husband, the phoenix for the wife. Worn alone it reads rather as a figure of grace and rectitude than as an image of rebirth.
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the phoenix 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.
It does not burn, it is not rebornThe Chinese fenghuang has nothing to do with the Greek phoenix that consumes itself and starts again from its ashes. It does not die, it appears and disappears. Translating it as phoenix is a Western convenience, and it has misled everyone for centuries.
A bird of good governmentThe ancient texts say it is visible when the reign is just, invisible when it is not. It is less a personal charm than a political omen, and its appearance was recorded in the imperial annals.
With the dragon, for a weddingDragon and phoenix paired form the commonest couple of Chinese nuptial iconography, the first for the husband, the second for the wife. Worn alone, the phoenix reads rather as a figure of grace and rectitude.
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.
