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SCMP Reporter

Jade plays a part in the culture of many countries, but none has as long a history as China.

The mainland is a big market for jade, prompting auction house Christie's to hold an exclusive auction of jade items at the end of this month.

'It is our first special sale dedicated to jade and we chose Hong Kong because we saw the market here. The sale will not be held anywhere else,' said Poala Antebi, director and head of the Chinese works of art department at Christie's Hong Kong.

Jade has long been revered by Asians as a symbol of good luck, good health and power to resist evil spirits.

Chinese regard carved jade items as intrinsically valuable and they equate jade with human virtues because of its toughness, durability and beauty.

Besides the mythical nature of the stone, jade is treasured by value-conscious and status-conscious collectors in Asia. In imperial China, only emperors and high-ranking officials were allowed to use jade.

Now people from all walks of life like jewellery and items in jade.

The '300 Years of Jade' auction, aims to tell the story of jade during the past 300 years, dating back to the Qianlong period in China, when jade culture peaked.

Chinese imperial ceramics and jade items are becoming increasingly popular with Hong Kong collectors.

'Chinese imperial ceramic and jade have been very popular and we are expecting collectors to come from Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States and Europe. We are targeting our private clients and other collectors,' said Ms Antebi.

With such a long history of jade, it took Christie's almost two years to put together the 150 lots of jade carvings and jewellery.

'We thought it will be interesting to have a complete sale of jade, one that is done to illustrate the wide range of carvings,' she said.

'Meiping', the most expensive jade carving at the auction, is an exquisite Mughal-style vase in white jade trellis. It is carved from one piece of jade with a net of flowers and tendrils.

'The net is attached to the body of the vase at six to seven points. It is a very intricate and fine piece of art,' said Ms Antebi. It took the craftsman five years at the palace workshop of Emperor Qianlong to complete this piece of work, she said. Christie's is expecting more than HK$10 million for it, while the total value of the auction is worth about HK$110 million.

'There is no other vase in the world like this, and it came to us from an Asian family which has owned it since the early 20th century,' said Ms Antebi.

Out of the total auction lots, 69 are jade jewellery, most made out of jadeite, which comes mainly from Burma.

'We want to show that jade is very much treasured by the Chinese, Japanese and Westerners,' said Ms Antebi.

From the second half of the 18th century, jade carvings gained popularity among the rich and royalty in the West and began to appear in collections in fashionable salons in Europe and the US.

The most recent discovery of jadeite stone, the Millennium Stone, was unearthed in Burma last year and was the most expensive jade stone sold. Christie's said some of the jewellery at the auction was made from this stone.

The highest priced jadeite jewellery was a bead necklace, which sold for US$9.3 million.

At the auction, the most valuable and exquisite piece of jadeite jewellery is a jadeite bead necklace made from the Millennium Stone.

It features 29 jadeite beads in fine textured emerald-green colour and translucent, strung on a diamond-set, interlaced open-work clasp enclosing a fancy light-yellow diamond bead.

Christie's expected the bead necklace to go under the hammer for more than US$2 million. Public viewing of the auction will start on October 28 and will last four days.

Graphic: jade08gwz



Christie's jade auction one-off special for HK