Sihui Jade Carving

Sihui Jade Carving

Nominating Unit: Sihui Municipality, City of Zhaoqing

Sihui Jade Carving is mainly popular around Dongcheng District of Sihui Municipality, as well as in such townships as Dasha, Jingkou, Didou, Xia’ao, etc. The jade industry experienced its infant age at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, during which time young people coincidentally learned something about jade, bone and wood carving skills from Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and brought them back to their hometown amid war times. In the 30s of the 20th century, some small workshops showed up which specialized in jade processing. Later on, they grew in scale and had formed a tradition. After the reform and opening up, Sihui Jade Carving enjoyed an even more prosperous momentum, with a jade street, jade city, jade fair, even jade museum showing up.

Sihui Jade Carving more often uses jade stone from Myanmar, and the types of product include sitting pieces, pendants, ornamental pieces and handheld pieces. The themes of these products are mainly about twelve Chinese zodiacs, flowers, birds, worms and fish, and scenery with mountain and river. Sihui Jade Carving pays great attention to the designing of styles, and pursues special similarity. The jade fish all look very lifelike, and you cannot help feeling that once put into water it will swim away. Another special trait of Sihui Jade Carving is its leveraging on the natural colors of the raw material. Spring Dawn on Loess Plateau is a representative work of such kind with its clever utilization of the natural colors of the stone. The bulk of the yellow color was used to express the spectacular Loess Plateau, and the white-with-green inner layer was used to depict the spring buds to express the vigor of the plateau. In 2003 it was awarded a national “Heavenly Craftsmanship Prize”. Also, on the 12th and 13th China Art Expos, many pieces of jade work from Sihui won gold prizes, which demonstrated the achievements of its jade carving craftsmanship.(https://www.daowen.com)

Sihui Jade Carving has developed into a gian industry now with many employees and high annual outputs. It has promoted the development of social economy. Now an International Jade City is also erected in Sihui, and more protective measures are being planned to ensure a better transmission of this craftsmanship.