Alabaster? Candle holder leaves thingy.

Is this likely to be Alabaster?. Any ideas on date please or is it modern (or old!) tat?.

 

Well found!. Thats huge compared to mine. I'm confused now, so is Alabaster a form of Jade or vice versa?. I'll have to go digging to see what it sold for.

 

@i need help, I just don't get how you do that SO DURN FASTTTTTTT !!
NICE JOB!!

 

Well, I disagree. Not Alabaster.

Chinese.
Soapstone or jade. (Keep in mind many different stones are called jade)
If it is easily scratched - Soapstone.

 

Vote for soapstone, it can easily be scratched with a needle, very soft stone.

 

May not be Chinese, some of these were made in Italy - those are alabaster.

 

There are two different stones known commonly as alabaster, both based on calcium. One is related to gypsum; the other to calcite (travertine is one form of this). Soapstone/steatite is fundamentally the mineral talc. All three stones are soft (steatite especially so) & have been used for carving for thousands of years. A lot of Egyptian scarabs, from the most ancient to ones being made today, are steatite. It can be smooth, but I've never seen it with this high a degree of polish or translucency. I would vote for calcite-type alabaster. A large part of why jade is so valued is its hardness & a structure that makes it resistant to fracture. It would not be worthwhile to make this sort of item from jade, a mineral completely unrelated to the other three.

 

Thankyou. I'll give it a wash and see how hard the stone is and report back!.

 

Do you live near me? One of these was in my favorite resale shop for a couple of weeks. Also with only one flower.

 

Well if it is alabaster and you wash it, you will dissolve any details off.

 

Just tested it with skewer in a discreet place and it scratches but it takes a bit of effort so not Jade but I don't think zsoapstone. I've got a piece of soapstone and it's harder than that

No I’m in the UK!. It was on a table at a car boot sale- don’t know if you have those in the USA or if they are a uniquely British oddity!

 

I've washed alabaster - Italian - with no issues.

I find these quite often at car boots, to.

 

Dunno how I quoted meself but there ya go :O

 

We are continents apart in distance, but close in our love of old beautiful things.

 

Gem trees are also plentiful here.

 

Suspect, then, that it is not soapstone, which is extremely soft, as stones go.

You would think in a car mad country like the US, these would have caught on big time, but have yet to hear of one. What some people do is get in their cars on the weekend & drive around looking for signs announcing yard/garage sales. I was so envious the first time an English friend showed off her finds from that weekend's boot sale & explained to me what she meant.

 

Isn't that what we call Flea Markets?