A jade sphere polished from a single block, in a deep fir green, almost black, crossed by a fine lacework of light veins that looks like frost on a windowpane. With every quarter turn, a different landscape appears.
In four lines
A sphere polished from a single block of stone.
A fir green under a lacework of light veins.
An object to set down, look at and pick up.
Every sphere has its own pattern.
A landscape you can turn
This jade sphere is an object you never see the same way twice. Its pattern wraps all the way around: turn it a quarter, and the veins and the lighter patches are no longer the same. The bright polish adds a reflection that slides along the curve at the slightest movement.
Set on a desk or a shelf, it draws the hand. You pick it up, turn it, set it down, and come back to it.
A fir green, under a lacework of frost
The background is a deep green, between fir and bottle green, that looks almost black in the shade. Over it runs a lacework of pale green and white veins, as fine as lace in places, broader elsewhere, recalling frost on a windowpane or the veins of a leaf.
No two spheres have exactly the same pattern: yours will have its own veins, more or less dense, more or less light.
Carved from a single block
A stone sphere is carved: you start from a block, cut off its corners, grind it until it is round, then polish it at length until the surface reflects light without a flaw. A good part of the stone disappears along the way: that is all the work behind a beautiful sphere.
Where to put it
A sphere rolls: set it on a small stand, a wooden ring or a small dish, where it will stay put. Near a window or under a lamp, its polish plays with the light; on a bookshelf, between two books, it brings a touch of dark, living green.
Nephrite is the tougher of the two stones called jade: its interwoven fibers withstand the small knocks of everyday life. A sphere does not mind being handled; it fears a fall onto a hard floor, which can mark or crack it. Jadeite or nephrite, what sets them apart, and hardness and toughness.
Caring for it
A soft, dry cloth is enough to remove dust; from time to time, a little lukewarm soapy water, then careful drying. Never ultrasonic cleaners, steam or solvents.Care in detail.
Additional information
Stone
Néphrite
Colour
Dark green
Stone shape
Sphère
Motif
No motif
Mounting
None
Metal
None
Setting
No setting
Worn by
Unisex
Paired stones
None, jade only
Mineral family
Calcic amphibole
Hardness (Mohs)
6 to 6.5
Reference density
2.90 to 3.03 g/cm³
Toughness
Exceptional, interlocking crystals
Treatment
Not determined
Origin
Outside Burma, country of extraction not confirmed
What tradition attributes to the jade sphere
What follows shifts register, and I say so rather than blending it into the rest of the page. None of it is proven. These are customs and beliefs, old and documented, that I report because they are part of this stone’s history. No object in this shop is sold as a remedy, and I attribute no effect to this one.
A stone of moral virtueIn Confucian thought, jade is associated with qualities of character rather than effects on the body: integrity, constancy, restraint. It is the best documented meaning of all.
The dragon’s pearlIn Chinese art, dragons chase a round pearl, often surrounded by flames. The motif of two dragons playing with the pearl has decorated fabrics, roofs and porcelain for centuries.
Baoding ballsIn the Chinese city of Baoding, pairs of balls that are rolled around each other in the palm have been made for centuries. The gesture has become a folk tradition.
The perfect shape of the GreeksIn the Timaeus, Plato has the world born in the shape of a sphere, because it is the most perfect of all figures and the most like itself. The idea has run through the whole of Western thought.
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.
