Large-scale jade Gongshi, or Spirit Stone, from Liaoliang, China

One of Nature’s Rarest Recipes

Take a bit of sodium, calcium, magnesium, and titanium. Add some aluminum and silicon; then put it deep inside the earth perched delicately on a tectonic plate. Be patient; wait from a few thousand to a few million years until the earth decides to engage in subduction, and watch closely as one tectonic plate slides under another. As the plates collide and abrade, add some iron to the mix for color. Slowly increase the temperature and pressure to exorbitantly high levels and allow the elements to fuse. Don’t rush; the next step takes even more time. Wait for the entire mix to cool and rise to the surface. Once it does you will have produced one of the most valuable minerals in the world – jade.

This jade Gongshi is presented on a fitted hand-carved hardwood base

This week’s New Arrival features a large Chinese jade Gongshi or “spirit stone,” a type of natural art valued for at least a thousand years. Normally, in their natural state – through inclusions or shape – Gongshi reference familiar life and objects such as figures, flowers, animals, landscapes, scenes and mythological creatures. Yet, jade rarely references anything beyond itself and usually requires the hand of an artist to give it form. So why consider this piece of jade a Gongshi? Although aficionados believe some Gongshi actually contain the spirits of what they portray, jade is recognized as a spirit, an immutable force connecting earth, heaven, and all that lies in-between.

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