Serpentine carving «new jade» · carp in lotus, 25 × 26 cm

A Chinese pierced jade carving: at the centre a large carp with finely scaled skin, raised dorsal fin and worked gills, around it lotus leaves, blossoms and seed pods, a bird in the foliage above. The piece measures 25 × 26 centimetres and is pierced right through — the lotus stems stand as free bars across the whole back.

Carp and lotus together form one of the strongest good-luck signs in Chinese imagery. It is a pun: fish (魚 yú) sounds like abundance (餘 yú), lotus (蓮 lián) like year after year (連 lián). Together they give 連年有餘 — lián nián yǒu yú, «abundance year after year». That is exactly the New Year wish, and exactly why such pieces were given.

The carp carries a second meaning: the one that leaps the waterfall at the Dragon Gate becomes a dragon — the emblem of rising by one's own effort.

Pierced carving in stone means cutting through, not just cutting away. Every bar left standing can break while working — and here dozens stand, some barely two millimetres thick, across a surface of 25 × 26 centimetres. On top of that: a jade blank of this size without cracks or flaws is rare and expensive — cutting into it is a decision you make only once. The back is worked as thoroughly as the front; the piece has no «unfinished» side. Scales, fin rays and leaf veins are each cut individually.

The piece is serpentine, usually sold in the trade as «new jade». The name is marketing: mineralogically serpentine is not jade — neither nephrite nor jadeite. It looks similar but is softer (Mohs 2.5–4 rather than 6–7) and lighter.

Why it is nonetheless the right material for this piece: that very softness is what makes pierced work like this possible at all. In nephrite these hair-thin bars across 25 × 26 centimetres could hardly be cut without half of them breaking — and the blank would cost a multiple. Serpentine is the material China has always used for elaborate pierced carving.

This is stated plainly so nobody expects anything else. If you want genuine nephrite, this is the wrong piece. If you want a large, very cleanly pierced carving, it is the right one.

CHF 950.–, negotiable. That is the price for a large, elaborately pierced serpentine carving — not a nephrite price. If you were expecting a jade price: it is the wrong material for that, and it says so above.

What carries the value here is the work and the size: 25 × 26 centimetres pierced right through, front and back equally executed, all bars intact.

Good. All bars intact, no breaks or repairs visible, edges with light age marks, surface with grown sheen.