Price guide to antique and vintage jadeite bird brooches. Jadeite is a pyroxene mineral and one of the two types of pure jade. The other is known as nephrite jade. Jadeite is the rarer of the two jades, and as a result, it is considered to be more precious and valuable. The most valuable form of jadeite is a striking and even emerald green known as “imperial jadeite”. Reference: Gem Select

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An Art Deco Jade Brooch, carved jade in a triangular shape, mounted in white metal tested as 14 ct, pin stamped 18 ct. Length 3.5 x 2.5 cm

Sold for £320 at Ewbank’s

Art Deco – a term coined in the 1960s – isn’t one style, but a pastiche of different styles, sources and influences. Art Deco designers borrowed from historic European movements, as well as contemporary Avant Garde art, the Russian ballets, folk art, exotic and ancient cultures, and the urban imagery of the machine age. Reference Victoria & Albert Museum.

From its outset, Art Deco was influenced by the bold geometric forms of Cubism; the bright colors of Fauvism and of the Ballets Russes; the updated craftsmanship of the furniture of the eras of Louis Philippe and Louis XVI; and the exotic styles of China and Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt and Maya art. It featured rare and expensive materials, such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship. The Chrysler Building and other skyscrapers of New York built during the 1920s and 1930s are monuments of the Art Deco style.

Art Deco was associated with both luxury and modernity; it combined very expensive materials and exquisite craftsmanship put into modernistic forms. Nothing was cheap about Art Deco: pieces of furniture included ivory and silver inlays, and pieces of Art Deco jewellry combined diamonds with platinum, jade, and other precious materials. The style was used to decorate the first-class salons of ocean liners, deluxe trains, and skyscrapers. It was used around the world to decorate the great movie palaces of the late 1920s and 1930s. Later, after the Great Depression, the style changed and became more sober.

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A Hetian jade carved pendant in the form of flowers, carved pendant set onto a dangling brooch.

Sold for $550.00 at Jambhala Antique & Jewelry, Inc

Of the many different varieties of Chinese jade, Hetian jade is considered to be one of the most valuable, and also happens to be the most well-known of jade varieties. For most of time, Hetian jade was a term used only to refer to jade mined from the Kunlun Mountains of Xinjiang, in the Western Autonomous Region of China that borders Mongolia and Russia. The exquisite material mined from Xinjiang has been prized for thousands of years for its greasy luster and exceptionally strong color. The name ‘Hetian’ jade was assigned after the transliteration of the small oasis town of Hotan or ‘Hetian’, which is located in South-Western Xinjiang. Since it is also named Hotan (or Hetian), Hetian jade may sometimes be referred to as Hotan jade as well. Reference: Gem Select

Nephrite and jadeite were used from prehistoric periods for hardstone carving. Jadeite has about the same hardness as quartz. Nephrite is slightly softer but tougher (more resistant to breakage) than jadeite. It was not until the 19th century that a French mineralogist, Alexis Damour (1808-1902), determined that “jade” was in fact two different minerals.

Among the earliest known jade artifacts excavated from prehistoric sites are simple ornaments with bead, button, and tubular shapes. Additionally, jade was used for adze heads, knives, and other weapons, which can be delicately shaped. As metal-working technologies became available, the beauty of jade made it valuable for ornaments and decorative objects including brooches and other jewellery. Jadeite measures between 6.0 and 7.0 Mohs hardness, and nephrite between 6.0 and 6.5, so it can be worked with quartz or garnet sand, and polished with bamboo or even ground jade. Reference Wikipedia.

Nephrite can be found in a creamy white form (known in China as “mutton fat” jade) as well as in a variety of light green colours, whereas jadeite shows more colour variations, including blue, red, black, dark green, lavender and white. Of the two, jadeite is rarer, documented in fewer than 12 places worldwide. Translucent emerald-green jadeite is the most prized variety, both historically and today. As “quetzal” jade, bright green jadeite from Guatemala was treasured by Mesoamerican cultures, and as “kingfisher” jade, vivid green rocks from Burma became the preferred stone of post-1800 Chinese imperial scholars and rulers. Burma (Myanmar) and Guatemala are the principal sources of modern gem jadeite. In the area of Mogaung in the Myitkyina District of Upper Burma, jadeite formed a layer in the dark-green serpentine, and has been quarried and exported for well over a hundred years. Canada provides the major share of modern lapidary nephrite. Nephrite jade was used mostly in pre-1800 China as well as in New Zealand, the Pacific Coast and the Atlantic Coast of North America, Neolithic Europe, and Southeast Asia. In addition to Mesoamerica, jadeite was used by Neolithic Japanese and European cultures.

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