The Color of Jade

Hi Uncle Arthur,

Reading the new articles, I have some questions. Can you help me with those?

“Old Mine Jade normally refers to those Jadeite Jade which has a vivid deep emerald green.  This type of green is caused by chromium and it is very pleasing to the eyes.  Those garden variety darkish green are caused by ferrous and there are very common and can be purchased very cheaply.”

I understand this but I can’t imagine what exactly “darkish green” in here. Can you give some photos for example?

Can you make something like a rank list for the color of jade bases on their value? I understand that there are many factors which affect to the value of a jade piece, but the color is one of the factors I don’t really get how to value them.

Thanks uncle! Really appreciate for your kindness.

Ivan

Hello Ivan

Color in a jade piece is one of the important factors determining the value of a jade.

According to some research on the perception of color, our naked eyes actually can differentiate as much as 10 million tints of color.  (I am not sure how this number came about).

The color in jade is determined by 3 factors.  These factors are hue, tone and saturation.

Hue refers to the vividness of color within the jade piece.  Hue in its simplest term refers to as ‘pure’ color.  In the theory of color there are 4 hues, that is, red, green, blue and yellow.  If the hue is vivid then each of these 4 types of color stands by itself individually.  Say, a high desirable green color jade has only green with no variation of other color. Hence, the more vivid the color of a jade the better the quality.

Tone refers to the brightness and lightness of a jade piece.  Hence the color green may be bright green or light green.

Saturation is the intensity of the color within the jade.

It may be difficult to give an accurate description of what constitutes a desirable color in terms of the 3 factors above.  The best lesson is from experience.  I have gone through a lot of costly lessons in learning what is the most desirable green color, as an ‘Imperial’ green color jade may be very pricey while the garden variety green is very cheap.  Dealers may use the following terms in describing the color green: imperial green, spinach green, pea green, apple green, dark green or light green.  These are generic description and is translated directly from Chinese to English.

As jade dealers we evaluate jade under natural daylight.  In tropical countries like Burma, the best hours are between 10am to 3pm.  Natural lighting before 10am and after 3pm is too diffused.  In retail environment where you buy jade pieces under halogen or chandelier’s lighting, the jade piece will look much better.  Remember also that although yellow is not exactly complimentary color to green, a green jade under halogen lighting looks much brighter and greener than in natural lighting condition.

Hence, if you are buying some jade pieces try to view the color of the jade under natural daylight.

Here, I posted some photos of what is actually a ‘lively’ green which gives the jade its value.  Those pictures with jadeitejade.com watermarks are my own collection.

There is no ranking of colors in determining the color of jade, as the scope is too wide to be really exact.  We do not use the color model of Munsell or Pantone as references.

Thank you Ivan

A.Arthur Lau

Tags: Burma jade, hue, Jade, jadeite jade, tone

Category: The Color of Jade