ON JADE AND KINDRED STONES. 
341 
also found in the form of yeschl , and is said to be cognate with 
LCMTirL?, and therefore with our jasper. It has already been seen 
that jade was formerly regarded as a green jasper. 
Jade is a stone of singular tenacity, breaking with difficulty 
and displaying a coarse splintery fracture. Notwithstanding 
the difficulty of cutting and polishing the stone, it has for ages 
been worked by the Chinese into a great variety of objects, 
such as vases, cups, armlets, bracelets, and other ornamental 
articles, often of most intricate patterns. These objects have 
always been very highly valued, on account not only of the 
beauty and rarity of the material, but also of the great 
amount of labour necessarily expended upon their production. 
This has led to numerous imitations of the Chinese yu-stone in 
glass or enamel known as pate de riz. 
It is said that when a piece of yu-stone of unusual size is 
discovered, the Emperor calls a council of artists to determine 
the form in which it may be most advantageously worked. On 
any important carving in jade the artist will spend at least 
twenty years, and in some cases his entire lifetime. When 
completed, the work is exposed to public criticism for a year, 
and if then pronounced satisfactory, the artist receives high 
honour and may be raised to the rank of a mandarin ; but if 
the work is faulty he loses not only his reputation but his 
head.* 
Probably the finest assemblage of objects ever made in yu, or 
Oriental jade, was the collection found at the Emperor of China’s 
Summer Palace, Yuen-min-Yuen, at Pekin, when sacked in 
1860. From this source a large number of specimens found 
their way to this country and to France. Some remarkable 
examples of jade-working may be seen in the South Kensington 
Museum, where there are two cases of fine carvings lent by 
Arthur Wells, Esq., of Nottingham. The colour of Oriental 
jade varies through a great variety of shades of green, but the 
stone is frequently of a milky white colour, very slightly tinged 
with a greenish yellow. While the white jade is generally uni- 
form in tint, much of the green jade is mottled, or flecked with 
darker spots. 
Among the more notable objects which the Chinese are fond 
of carving in yu-stone is the peculiar staff or wand of authority 
known as the joo-ee. One of these batons is represented in 
PI. VIII. fig. 2. A joo-ee generally takes the form of a graceful 
double curve, something like the letter w . , but with less pro- 
nounced curvature, and more like Hogarth’s famous “ line of 
beauty.” It is only the finest of the joo-ees that are made of 
* “ Catalogue of Captain De Negroni’s Collection of Chinese Porcelain, 
Jade,” etc. 1865. 
