Understanding Jadeite: Colour, Water and Character

The word jade covers two different stones: jadeite and nephrite. Both have been treasured in Chinese culture for thousands of years, but jadeite — rarer, harder, capable of finer colour — is the stone this house is built on.

Colour

Jadeite’s palette is broader than most people expect: from icy near-white through apple and imperial greens, to lavender, russet and deep black. Colour in fine jade should look alive — even in a dark stone there is depth, not flatness.

Water

Connoisseurs speak of a stone’s water — its translucence, the way light enters and moves inside it. High water makes a stone look wet, luminous, almost soft. It is the quality photographs struggle hardest to capture, and the reason we always offer to show a piece on video or in person.

Character

Then there is what no grading term captures: the veining, the drift of colour, the way a carver has answered the stone’s own pattern. Two bangles of equal colour and water can feel entirely different. This is why jade is met, not ordered — and why every piece in our catalogue is photographed as itself, never as an example of a type.

Browse the collection in the catalogue — every piece is one of a kind, price on enquiry. We reply personally on WhatsApp.