18th-Century Chinese Jade Belt Hook
18th-Century Chinese Jade Belt Hook
VALUE (2012) | $2,500 Auction – $3,500 Auction
ANTIQUES ROADSHOW APPRAISAL
On this episode of Antiques Roadshow Lark E. Mason appraised an 18th-Century Chinese Jade Belt Hook.
UPDATE (2012) | $2,500 Auction – $3,500 Auction
APPRAISED VALUE (1998) | $1,000
This appraisal was featured in Milwaukee, Hour 1 (#0305) and Vintage Milwaukee (#1723) and was filmed in Milwaukee, WI on July 20, 1998.
APPRAISAL TRANSCRIPT
GUEST:
My wife received it after her grandmother passed away, and I did a little background checking while I was waiting to get out here and found out that it was passed down from her great-grandmother, and that's about as far as I could find in the rest of the information on it.
APPRAISER:
Do you know what the material is?
GUEST:
We looked at it and always were thinking it was jade.
APPRAISER:
It is absolutely jade. And you get different types of qualities of jade. This is very interesting because it's actually sort of a white jade that has a very pale green cast to it, which we call celadon jade. And the interesting thing about jade is that it was used extensively in China. And this is Chinese, it's not Japanese, and was likely made in the 18th century. And I can tell that because not only the quality of the carving, which is extremely fine, but also from the color of the stone itself. You can see on the other side that there's some very slight inclusions which are discolorations in the stone, which is characteristic of jade that was used in the 18th century. It actually is a belt buckle. And what you would do is you would have a fabric loop that would go over the head of the dragon and another loop over the back, and you would take this loop on and off as you put your belt back on. You have the father dragon and you also have a baby dragon, which is here. And in the mouth of the baby dragon it is clutching a branch of something called a lingzhi, and a lingzhi is sort of a type of mushroom which you find in China that is a connotation of good luck. So all these things sort of add together to make this a pretty special object. Would it surprise you if I told you it was worth about $1,000?
GUEST:
That's great, love it.
APPRAISER:
That's what it is. It's a very nice example, beautifully carved, and not something that we see every day, so I'm really glad that you came in with it.