Pomelo
Brilliant_Rock
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 961
Dedicating a thread to nephrite in all its various forms!
Nephrite has a different set of benchmarks to jadeite, so it’s been interesting to learn about the different attributes and characteristics of the stone.
I’ll start with my one and only nephrite piece so far: a spinach green nephrite bangle.
She’s a chunky 16mm doughnut and weighs in at 132 grams. Her black freckles belie her Russian heritage (black flake-like freckles are commonly found in Russian material).
Even though nephrite material is cheaper than jadeite, it’s not common to find bangles at over 13/14mm and it took me a few months to find something with her dimensions in high-density evenly-coloured material.
It’s also interesting to see how much lighter spinach green nephrite gets under direct sunlight.
Another bangle I liked but ultimately returned as the material (“meat”) wasn’t dense enough is this white bangle with black “skin”. Note that the colour of this bangle is decently white but the density (oiliness) is far from muttonfat. This is Russian material which tends to be less dense than Xinjiang (China) material.
I am on the hunt for a beautiful muttonfat piece but they’re highly sought after and very expensive!
By comparison (although I don’t think it’s obvious in photos), this Xinjiang material was more dense (and also 3x the price).
And because nephrite has been revered and used in Chinese culture for millennia, here is a huge, intricately carved royal stamp that I recently saw (but sadly I’ve forgotten its age).
And one of the most famous pieces of nephrite… the piece of red-braised pork at the Palace Museum in Taipei. This is a screenshot as sadly the pork was not in display when I visited. This is what nephrite lovers mean about oiliness!
Nephrite has a different set of benchmarks to jadeite, so it’s been interesting to learn about the different attributes and characteristics of the stone.
I’ll start with my one and only nephrite piece so far: a spinach green nephrite bangle.
She’s a chunky 16mm doughnut and weighs in at 132 grams. Her black freckles belie her Russian heritage (black flake-like freckles are commonly found in Russian material).
Even though nephrite material is cheaper than jadeite, it’s not common to find bangles at over 13/14mm and it took me a few months to find something with her dimensions in high-density evenly-coloured material.
It’s also interesting to see how much lighter spinach green nephrite gets under direct sunlight.
Another bangle I liked but ultimately returned as the material (“meat”) wasn’t dense enough is this white bangle with black “skin”. Note that the colour of this bangle is decently white but the density (oiliness) is far from muttonfat. This is Russian material which tends to be less dense than Xinjiang (China) material.
I am on the hunt for a beautiful muttonfat piece but they’re highly sought after and very expensive!
By comparison (although I don’t think it’s obvious in photos), this Xinjiang material was more dense (and also 3x the price).
And because nephrite has been revered and used in Chinese culture for millennia, here is a huge, intricately carved royal stamp that I recently saw (but sadly I’ve forgotten its age).
And one of the most famous pieces of nephrite… the piece of red-braised pork at the Palace Museum in Taipei. This is a screenshot as sadly the pork was not in display when I visited. This is what nephrite lovers mean about oiliness!
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