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I'm a little baffled at what I bought. Artistically I think they are wonderful, but what are they made of? They each weigh a little under a pound and are about 7 inches tall. I have never owned anything like them. Are they glass, stone, ceramic, ivory, horn, something molded? There is one chipped area on the male midway down on the edge of his robe where you can see the inner color if that gives you any more to work with. Thanks for your insights. John
Hi John,
Based on your images it is my opinion that they are probably made from Soapstone.
If you take a pen knife you will be able to easily make a small scratch.
Mark
Hi John,
Could it be soapstone? This is a job for Mark. You’re supposed to look at the hands, face, robes....I’m told. They look very nice to my amateur eye.
Todd
take it with a grain of salt
Hi Todd,
Your correct on my opinion. They do look like Soapstone. As you noted the details within the face, hands and robes are indicative of both quality and age.
Mark
@imperialfinegems Thanks for chiming in. What causes me to question if they are soapstone is the damaged area. If you look at it there is a color difference between the surface and the interior. Wouldn't stone be more consistent throughout?
Hi John,
Generally speaking yes however Soapstone is porous and as such is very easy to dye the stone. I think they have been dyed to give the special effects etc.
As i wrote in reply if you take a knife you will be able to make a small scratch or Mark with very little effort. Other stones will not be that easy to scratch.
Also the feeling of the stone will be like touching or rubing a block of soap.
Give it a try and let us know what happens. 😊
Mark
To me, it looks like that those statues were moulded using some sort of modern plasters, i.e. a mixture of polymer resin, stone powder, and dyes.
@imperialfinegems I scratched it and it behaves like soapstone. When you say they dyed it to create the effects, I am curious about that because I have never heard of that with soapstone. Was that done at a particular time? How old do you think they might be?
@ubecha How modern would they need to be to fit your description? I bought them from someone who claimed to have had them for about 30 years and bought them from a friend dealer who had had them for many years prior to that, so we are talking probably at least 50 years at the most recent that they could have been fabricated if that is what happened. Would that fit your idea? Also, would the fabricated versions scratch and behave like soapstone does?
Hi, I would believe that the resin-based plasters might be tracked back to 1930s or a little bit earlier than that, which according to the textbook was the beginning of polymer chemistry. But I could be wrong. Many old jadeite jade items that were dated to late Qing Dynasty (1890s-1910s) were found as grade B, which means that they had been impregnated with polymer resins. It is hard to believe or explain, because there was not supposed to be any polymers back in the late Qing period.
Hi John,
Dyed Soapstone has been around for yonks and is very easy to apply using various methods etc. You can Google 'dyed Soapstone' for more information on the technical data and history.
At first when I viewed your statues I thought they were made from resin. However resin has tell-tale signs including seams, pit holes, bubbles and non detailed areas that fade into a seam or other. These are predominantly seen within the finer areas such as eyes, hands and beard just to name a few. I saw nothing from your pictures that suggested they were resin. I can only judge by the availability of information provided by you. I could of course be wrong!
If they were resin then a hot pin test would indicate said etc.
As to age it I think your items are fairly modern and from the second half of the 20th century. It's difficult to determine these days because of the high quality of Soapstone carvings currently coming out of China. I think these copies are probably done with a 3 printer (not yours). The quality of some I have seen by way of pictures only is outstanding.
This is due to the fact that the market for Qing/earlier period Soapstone is very strong at the moment. One only has to look at the huge sums achieved at the major auction houses. Some have sold for more than their jade counterparts in some rare instances.
Yours are nicely detailed and would look awesome in the right environment.
Mark
A couple of great articles on dyed jadeite jade from GIA and an Australian dealer who is a certified gemologist. Unfortunately due to the size I was unable to post here. However they are freely available via Google under 'dyed jade'.
The history of dyed jadeite is murky waters as already noted. However from my knowledge Grade B jadeite has been around since about 1980 whereas Grade C has been around since the late Qing period.
I must confess though I know very little about the history of dyed stones etc.😊
Mark
@imperialfinegems Well, pin tested them and they failed, so unfortunately they are some type of resin. Disappointment is sometimes the price of education. So, my next question is do these have any value at all as vintage resin carvings or are they looked at as junk? They are so well done it is hard to imagine they wouldn't have some value at least? And are they moulded entirely or are they a mix of that and some carving?
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