You may remember our earlier Collection Spotlight on Henry Herrmann’s Herbarium [https://www.rivermuseum.org/exhibits/herbarium-henry-herrmann]. Henry’s passion for the natural world went beyond botany. ‘“I wanted to go to college to be a geologist,’” the July 25th, 1966, edition of the Telegraph Herald reported him saying, “but my father decided that I should join my two older brothers in the furniture business...’” This didn’t stop him from exploring his fascination, and he entered this stone carving at the annual Tri-State Gem and Mineral Show. The July 11th, 1969, edition of the Telegraph Herald describes it as “one of [Henry’s] Chinese jade carvings.” It was based on this description that the sculpture was donated to us in 2004.
However, this identification might be a misunderstanding. The stone isn’t jade (nephrite or jadeite); it’s soapstone (steatite) or pyrophyllite. In the early 1900s, such soft stone carvings were made for international trade under the names “Soochow jade” (a former name for the region of Suzhou) or “Shanghai jade.” These names were trade terms rather than actual material references. They also went by “Shoushan stone,” a prized soft stone mined from the mountain near Shoushan Village in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China.
How do we know it’s not jade? Soapstone has a much softer texture than jade, with a waxy or ‘soapy’ feel. Pyrophyllite is very similar but less “soapy’ than talc-based soapstone. These soft stones allowed artisans to carve more detail at a lower cost and more quickly. Before power tools, artisans used hand chisels to cut the stone, and these marks can sometimes be seen on the underside of some vessels. Unlike jade, these soft stones can sometimes be scratched with a fingernail and tend to have a more matte finish. Jade requires much more effort to carve and wouldn’t display such clear tool marks. Shoushan stones could be finished with wax and buffed to produce a glossy, jade-like luster that doesn’t last with use.
This carving is created from a single stone, crafted into multiple vessels decorated with birds, flowers, and rocks. The artisans took advantage of the Shoushan stone’s colorful impurities, such as rusty red iron oxide patches, carved into peachy peonies or gray magnetite magpies. A fenghuang (a mythological king of birds similar to a phoenix) is curled up beside a peony (the king of flowers), symbolizing harmony, beauty, and prosperity. The piece sits on a base of coral-like gongshi (scholar’s rocks or viewing stones). While not jade, this piece is made from a highly valued stone, and designed to induce contemplation of academic pursuits.