Jade bell flower earrings: a small bell shaped flower carved in the round from a translucent white stone, capped with a silver tone cup and topped by a green bead.
The calyx is hollowed from underneath and the petals are released one by one: it is the most finely cut piece in the section, and the lightest to wear.
The bell and the bead are not the same tint, and the page does not deduce that it is the same stone. Why I write it down.
Jade bell flower earrings: a small bell shaped flower, carved in the round from a translucent white stone, capped with a chased silver tone cup and topped by a green bead. The whole hangs from a simple hook and moves at every step.
In four lines
A flower as a bell carved in the round, in a white stone.
A chased silver tone cup and a green bead above.
Two different stones on the same earring, and the page says so.
The record will be published, with an observation of grain as well as the figure.
A carving, not a cut out
The bell is worked in the round: the calyx is hollowed from underneath, the petals are released one from another and their edges curl slightly outward. This is not a plate cut into the silhouette of a flower, it is a small sculpture in the round.
At this size the work is delicate: the inside has to be hollowed out without piercing the wall, and on a stone as tough as nephrite that is done by abrasion, not by cutting. It is the most finely cut piece in the earring section.
The hollow also has a consequence for the weight: the flower is far lighter than a solid stone of the same volume, and the pair is worn without pulling. Why a carving this fine stands the shock.
Two stones, and two colours
The bell is white, translucent, barely tinged with green on the thin edges. The bead above it is a frank and clearly deeper green. These are not the same tints, and it would be surprising if it were the same stone.
My supplier announces only one word for both, and I am not going to deduce from that that they are the same material. The record therefore carries the green bead on its own line, as an element whose material is not established.
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 flower 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.
Mutton fat whiteOld Chinese taste placed at the summit the white nephrites taken from Xinjiang, called mutton fat for their greasy, dense look. The hierarchy reversed in the eighteenth century with the arrival of the green jadeites from Burma.
Bell shaped flowersLily of the valley and campanulas do not belong to the classical Chinese repertoire, which prefers plum, lotus and peony. This shape comes from Western jewellery, and it is recent in jade.
Jade at the earsThe jueshi, slit jade rings worn at the ear, are among the oldest known Chinese ornaments: examples are found in Neolithic burials, long before the discs and the belt pendants.
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.
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.
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.
