Red-Stained Stone (Jixueshi)
 Jixueshi
(literally, chicken-blood stone) is a precious stone
found in China and is particularly good for making seals.
A piece of this red-stained stone, greatly valued because
it is rare, is worth up to 10,000 yuan.
Produced at Yuyan Mountain in Changhua County,
Zhejiang Province, the stone is a mineral intergrowth
of cinnabar and pyrophyllite. It derives its name because cinnabar is
brilliantly red, like chicken blood. Pyrophyllite, on the other hand,
may be in any of a variety of colours - white, yellow, grey, green or
black - which, stained with the red, presents at its best a glittering
and translucent splendour never to be matched by human creations. The
market value of such apiece of stone is assessed by the amount of red
in it, the brillance of its colours, its translucence and purity.
First discovered during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644),
the stone was carved at the time into art objects used by the nobility
as gifts to one another. Down to the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911),
the im-perial family and the aristocrats chose the best of the stone
to make seals, buying it at high prices for their collection. Today
it is occasionally available at antiquarian shops and
Friendship Stores.
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