Below are some of the beautiful jadeite design/carvings. No wonder jadeite is so popular particularly with the Chinese Hong Kong,etc. The sight of these highly translucency well carved jadeite artistic designs are lovely to enjoy!
Beautiful pair of dolphin-jadeite with diamonds
Beautiful butterfly design-jadeite with diamonds
Beautiful jadeite flower brooch with diamond
Beautiful jadeite flower in basket brooch with diamond design
Below are a few very lovely very highly translucent jadeite necklaces which fetched extremely high prices in the Sotheby’s auctions:
16 cabochons Jadeite Necklace with a hammer Price with Buyer's Premium22,462,400 HKD
Thirty-nine graduated brilliant emerald green jadeite beads of exceptional translucency and fine texture.Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium HKD26,080,000
Below are some very beautiful expensive jadeite pendants bearing popular Chinese/Buddhist images:
Highly translucent jadeite carving
highly translucent bright emerald green material of even tone throughout carved as a seated buddha wearing a joyous expression with one hand holding a rosary
Highly translucent bright emerald green material carved as a seated guanyin holding a flask
Due to its high price, there are many jadeite fakes in the market. Hence, it is extremely important to buy from very reputable auctioneers like Sotheby’s and Christie’s Swire in Hong Kong.
Highly translucent jadeite Peapod of rich emerald green material of good thickness, surmounted by a pear-shaped diamond weighing 1.23 carats, mounted in 18 karat white gold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: HKD6,480,000
A pair of highly translucent interlocking jadeite double hoops of brilliant even emerald green colour, accented with a diamond-set hoop, suspended from a trilliant and princess-cut diamonds, mounted in 18 karat white gold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: HKD 5,696,000
Jadeite Ring set with a highly translucent bright emerald green jadeite cabochon, on a textured gold shank of 18 karat yellow gold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium: HKD 660,000
Emerald green material of fine translucency carved as a pepper of good thickness, surmounted by circular-cut diamonds, mounted in platinum, circa 1940's.Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium:HKD4,800,000
Many jewellers classify jadeite by texture into three categories:
Old-mine or lao keng jadeite
Comparatively old-mine or jiu keng jade
New-mine or xin keng jadeite
The old-mine is considered as the best category with fine texture, excellent lustre and high translucency.
Experts identify the quality of jadeite by the following criteria:
Intensity of color
Purity or Zheng: a pure green with no traces of blue or yellow
Intensity or nong: the more intense the green the better
Brightness or yang: a fresh brightness free from shade or mist
Evenness or yun:an even distribution of green throughout the gemstone
Translucency: the more translucent, the more valuable it is re: the lustrous and transparent one being the best cateogry
When buying jadeite, the aforesaid criteria need to be scrutinized. Other ancillary matching jewel like diamonds which are occassionally used to enchance its being is really of secondary importance.
Jade is a very wide term for many colors of jade stones namely the white,grey,green(fresh) green, purple, yellow,brown,red,green-white and others.
Jadeite which is popularly known as feicui ( in Chinese) is a hard jade. See gemological properties of Jadeite below:
Jadeite
Chemical Composition
NaAIS12O6
Color
White,grey, green(fresh) green),purple,yellow,red,etc with uneven color distribution
Moh Hardness
7
Mineral Composition
Pyoxene
Specific Gravity
3.2-3.4(average 3.3)
Pressure-bearing point
7.1 x108
Refractive Index
1.67
Crystal System
Short,grainy aggregate
Lustre
Glassy
The term feicui came from An Analysis of the Structure of Chinese Characters, a book by Xu Shen of the Eastern Han dynasty, which states that fei is a red-feathered bird and cui, a green-feathered on. In ancient Chinese periods it was a common for the woman to adorn their jewellery with the pattern of birds. In the Song dynasty, fei and cui became one word to denote jade, but only the jade with a dark green color and not the Burma-produced intensely green jadeite.
Antique jade is actually ancient or very old jade stone normally made from nephrite. Jadeite is believed to be in existence in China only after the Ming Dynasty.
See gemological properties Of Nephrite in below table:
Nephrite
Chemical Composition
Ca2(Mg1Fe)5Si8O22(OH)2
Color
White(mutton-fat),dark green, pale green,etc with even color distribution