Flowers and Floral Patterns in Chinese Jade Carvings

Flowers and Floral Patterns in Chinese Jade Carvings

Sometimes unforeseen circumstances motivate the inspiration to write.  I was cleaning the portion of my book shelf containing research books on Chinese jades when, quite by chance I came upon a book Jade Flowers and Floral Patterns in Chinese Decorative Art by Cheng Te-k’un. Dusting was put aside and I spent the next hour refreshing my knowledge of jade flowers.   My love for jade flowers was instilled early in my childhood by my mother who loved jades.  When it was time to name her daughters, she selected the character hua (flower) for all her seven daughters, and identified each of us after a certain type of jade.  Dr. Cheng’s writing was thorough.  He discussed the earliest  form of jade flower was found during the Warring States period (475 – 221 BC.)  The popularity grew and by the Tang Dynasty (CE 618 – 907) jade flowers were in vogue.  Ladies wore them as personal ornaments.  The best examples of  flowers and floral patterns in jades still extant today are dated to the Yuan (CE 1279 – 1368) and Ming Dynasty (CE 1368 – 1644.) They are carved out of nephrite.  In the Qing Dynasty, jade flowers were carved in both nephrite and jadeite, the green color jade from Burma. The illustrations in the Jade Flowers book are plentiful but the common practice in the older scholarly books,  they are in black and white print.

  

However, it was not long that I came to a 1991 exhibition catalog from Spink & Son Ltd titled Chinese Jade. There are some really good photographs. The oldest flowers are No. 67 in the center and No. 69.  They are dated Song (CE 960-1279.) The rest are Song to Ming.

The five large jade plaques to the left are also from the Spink catalog. Each piece is a good illustration of how floral patterns flow smoothly in the background.They are dated to the Yuan to Ming.  The small flower at the center bottom is a very popular Ming design.

While browsing through Leslie Hindman Auctioneer's September Asian Sale, to my delight, I found more examples of the related topic. http://catalogues.lesliehindman.com/asp/search.asp?pg=1&st=D&sale_no=329

Jade Flowers

Smaller Jade Flowers, very much like the one at Spink's

Jade Flower, very similar to Spink's No. 68

Jade Hairpins of the Ming Dynasty

The two end pieces are jadeite carvings and the center is a rust color jade

Not identified but this and the three pieces above are very similar to the Spink's jade flowers

Also at Sale 329 of Leslie Hindman's are good examples of how jade flowers are included in the background of pierce jade plaques.

Lastly this is a jade flower from my collection and my Chinese name Kunhua, really means agate, a type of stone that is even harder than jade, but still belongs to the Jade family.

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Please note that these examples of jade flowers are randomly selected and further research at other auction and internet sites will yield more examples.