A jade ring for women, a clear green oval cabochon held by four claws at the centre of a halo of white stones. A fine sterling silver band, with shoulders pierced in scrollwork.
This mounting catches: the claws, the halo and the openwork take hold of woollen knits. That is not a defect, it is the price of the halo, which makes the stone look larger.
The white stones are named nowhere by my supplier, and I will not name them either. Set, therefore unweighable. Treatment status not determined.
A jade ring for women set with a clear green oval cabochon, held by four claws at the centre of a halo of small white stones. The band is fine, in sterling silver, and its shoulders are pierced in scrollwork.
In four lines
An oval cabochon, four claws, within a halo of white stones.
A fine sterling silver band, shoulders pierced in scrollwork.
That openwork catches: this is not a ring to wear under a woollen sleeve.
Set, therefore unweighable: no figure will be published, and the page says so.
A halo, and what it does to the stone
The cabochon is ringed by a crown of small set white stones. It is a classic jewellery mounting, and it has a precise optical effect: it makes the central stone look larger, and it increases the contrast, therefore the apparent intensity of the green. The same cabochon set on its own would look smaller and duller.
What that costs: the whole assembly rises higher above the finger, and the claws as well as the crown catch on fabrics, on a woollen knit in particular. It is not a manufacturing defect, it is the price of this mounting, and it is better to know beforehand than after.
The scrollwork on the shoulders
The two shoulders of the band are cut with arabesques, an openwork filigree motif. Here too, that means less metal and more edges: the ring is lighter to the eye, and it catches more.
Openwork is also hard to clean: dust and soap lodge in it. A very soft brush, lukewarm water, careful rinsing, and thorough drying before putting it away, since a closed setting holds water under the stone. Care in detail.
How to take your size
The European size is the finger circumference in millimetres: a 54 measures 54 mm around the inside, nothing to convert. Measure with a tailor’s tape or a strip of paper, at the end of the day rather than on waking, since the finger is thinner in the morning.
On a band as fine as this one, take your exact size: unlike a wide ring, it does not grip more than it appears to. Silver can be resized by a jeweller, but the pierced shoulders lend themselves to it poorly, since the motif distorts when the diameter is changed. The size guide.
A clear green, and where it comes from
The green of jadeite comes from chromium, where nephrite’s comes from iron and pulls toward spinach. The two minerals are unrelated: jadeite is a pyroxene, nephrite an amphibole, and it was Alexis Damour who separated them in 1863. What tells them apart.
The cabochon is domed and polished solid, with no facets: the green reads as one block, denser around the rim where the thickness crossed is greatest. And what lets a stone this size hold on four fine claws is the toughness of jade, not its hardness, which stays ordinary. The difference between hardness and toughness.
Additional information
Stone
Jadéite
Colour
Clear green
Stone shape
Cabochon
Motif
No motif
Mounting
Metal band
Metal
Sterling silver 925
Setting
Claw set
Worn by
Women
Paired stones
White stones, not identified
Mineral family
Sodium aluminium pyroxene
Hardness (Mohs)
6.5 to 7
Reference density
3.25 to 3.36 g/cm³
Toughness
Exceptional, interlocking crystals
Treatment
Not determined
Origin
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to a jade ring
What follows changes register, and I flag it rather than blending it into the rest of the page. Nothing here is demonstrated. These are usages and beliefs, old and documented, that I report because they are part of the history of this stone. No piece of jewellery in this shop is sold as a treatment, and I attribute no effect to this one.
The scholar's ringIn imperial China, the jade ring was also worn as a mark of rank and of study, not only as an ornament. It is the usage best attested by surviving objects.
A stone of moral virtueIn Confucian thought, jade is associated with qualities of character rather than with effects on the body: uprightness, constancy, restraint. It is the best documented meaning of all.
Green and growthClear green is, in several Asian traditions, the colour of what grows and renews itself. The association is old and broad; it says nothing about the stone itself.
The receiving handAs with the bangle, several traditions distinguish the left hand from the right, one receiving and the other giving. The usage is widespread; it is known to have no basis other than custom.
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.
Getting the size wrong is the most common reason for a return in this category, and jade cannot be resized the way a solid metal band can. Two minutes spent measuring almost always avoids it. The size guide.
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.
