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What Does This Plum Jade Vase Have To Do With Mandarin Yellow?

From David Chadwick-

The short answer, by way of identification, is that this is a #5012. So off I went to the website to see if webmaster Marshall Ketchum had entered my piece in the shape gallery. Therewith I also found a companion Mandarin Yellow example. The accompanying line drawing, however, calls it “Plain Yellow or Jade or Trans. Colors” and a 12″ height. This attributed Mandarin Yellow piece can be found by a search under the website’s colors, as Mandarin Yellow, but no color category was ever created for “Plain Yellow.” Alan, I leave it to your judgment and followers’ endurance as to whether you want to enter this thicket again or not, but here goes…! (ED–now you’ve been warned)

The website lists six Mandarin Yellow pieces, the first three of which carry the CMoG imprimatur, and were apparently submitted to the website directly, but two of the remaining three seem to qualify as Mandarin Yellow because Rockwell (back cover of his “Frederick Carder and His Steuben Glass”), Dimitroff, and Revi so identify #3313, and #3594 is called Mandarin Yellow by Dimitroff and Shuman. The piece that matches my plum jade has apparently earned Mandarin Yellow status by the webmaster’s attribution.

#3313

#3594

So what other photographic evidence is there of Mandarin Yellow? Gardner’s color plate XXIII adds five more, though he did not give any numbers. I assume these five pieces are, left to right, #5030, #2683, and #2785, and cannot find line drawings for the remaining two. Gardner again uses the plate in his paperbound “Frederick Carder: Portrait of a Glassmaker,” as does Shuman in his “American Art Glass,” though again, no identification by number is given. Plate XXIX gives a picture, again unidentified but I’m guessing #2111. This seems to conclude the certifiable universe of Mandarin Yellow. So is “Chinese Yellow” the same as Mandarin Yellow, and since Chinese Yellow and Plain Yellow are sometimes alternatives to Yellow Jade, how can we distinguish among these, if at all?

Now my plum jade piece, #5012, and its accompanying yellow cognate, is in the middle of a string of yellow pieces in the line drawings, and while none is called Mandarin Yellow, they all share several terms as identifiers: “Yellow,” “Plain Yellow,” “Yellow Jade,” and “Chinese Yellow.” And to complicate matters further, line drawings give no indication that #2648, “Aurene or Trans Colors” and #3282, “Aurene or Jade: Amber Moss Agate,” which CMoG called Mandarin Yellow, were so purposed. This leaves #5012, “Plain Yellow or Jade or Trans Colors,” without picture or line drawing lineage as Mandarin Yellow, even if so identified on the website.

So here I go into the weeds: Starting with 5002 we have what appear to be a series of Yellow Jade items, and I am going to catalogue them sequentially to show the variability of terms used.

5002 – a yellow jade bowl – no description
5003 – a yellow jade vase with ring handles – no description
5005 – “Carved Jade or Plain Chinese Jade” – but no picture
5006 – “Carved Jade or Plain Chinese Yellow” – picture of a yellow vase called “Yellow Jade)
5007 – “Plain Chinese Yellow” – picture of yellow vase with ring handles
5008 – “Carved Jade or Plain Chinese Yellow” – but no picture
5009 – “Carved or Plain Yellow” – yellow jade vase with ring handles shown (see end note)
5010 – “Plain Yellow” – no picture shown
5011 – “Plain Yellow” – no picture shown
5012 – “Plain Yellow or Jade or Trans. Colors” (the item, supra, that started this thread, disquisition – rant?)
5013 – “Plain Yellow or Carved” – no picture
5014 – “Plain Yellow or Trans. colors”
5015 – “Plain Yellow or Trans. Colors or Rosaline with no handles”
5016 – “Carved or Plain Yellow”
5020 – “Carved Jade or Plain Yellow” – no picture
5021 – “Chinese Yellow” – picture listed as Yellow Jade
5022 – “Chinese Yellow or Carved Jade” – no picture

And if this weren’t enough, there is #5026, a tray, which is called Yellow Alabaster, and then another tray, 5027, is Jade Yellow (unusual arrangement, since green is the only jade that puts the color designation first). So are Yellow Alabaster and Jade Yellow the same color?

I have shared the following information in previous Gazettes, but I believe it gives a clue as to the coincidence of Plain Yellow, Chinese Yellow, and Yellow Jade. My 5009 has a beautifully written pencil (can it be good penmanship, if it is in pencil?) notation “Chinese Yellow,” across base and pontil. That it probably came from the factory is evidenced by the fact that the Marshall, Field’s price label covers over part of the pencil marking (and setting the price at $12.00…!). This may have been simply the worker’s shorthand term for Yellow Jade, but since it made its way into the line drawings on the website, and is interchangeable with “Plain Yellow” and “Yellow Jade,” I take that as an identity, though neither Plain Yellow or Chinese Yellow is a color option to which the website directs the user.

David

#5002

#5003

#5006

#5009

#5016

#5021