PrivateCollection is the Photo Blog for Susan Dods, a long time collector and dealer of antique jewelry. The site features photographs and commentary on very special pieces of Chinese Jewelry. The listing Gallery displays items for sale. Rather than searching the archive, view ALL of the posts at one time with our exclusive PictureBook format.

Chinese White Jade Beads

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

My photographer had to spend a lot of time with these beads...  they have a life and personality that changes with the time of day and light.

600x600-00

He offered to buy them so that he wouldn't have to photograph them anymore... I said "no!". So he presented me with six different lighting and background combinations and asked me to: "take my pick!"

168x400-2 168x400-4
168x400-3 168x400-7
168x400-6 168x400-5

I believe that these beads were originally part of a Mandarin Court Necklace. The 28 smaller 11 mm beads are semi-translucent white jade with pale green undertones... carved with a stylized Shou symbol on 4 sides. The three 20mm larger beads are an opaque pale green with the Shou on 2 sides and provide a stable contrast for the liveliness of the smaller beads.

0079a

These beads came from a man who told me; "my mother brought back a much larger necklace from a visit to China in the 1960's and had her jeweler make it into several separate necklaces which she gave to family and friends as a souvenir of her trip."

It makes me wonder... how many Mandarin Court Necklaces met a similar fate?

Visit PrivateCollection's PictureBook to see additional photos... many in larger formats.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment | Home