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A translucent green jade disc on a wet rock, mountains behind it in mist

Carry what the stone remembers.

Jade and stone carved by hand in a master carver’s atelier. Each piece is cut to the colour of its own rough, named the way the report names it, and made for one intention.

Six intentions, carved.

Every form in Chinese jade carving has carried a meaning for centuries. Choose the one you want to carry; we’ll show you the pieces cut for it.

The first editions

See all thirteen
The stone decides. The hand only listens.

No two roughs carry the same colour, so no two pieces can be the same. What you wear was composed around one stone, once.

What we will tell you, and what we won’t.

  • We name every stone the way an independent gemmological report names it — jadeite, nephrite, serpentine, chalcedony — not the way it is traditionally called. If there is no report yet, the page says so.
  • We disclose any treatment before you pay. Bleached, dyed, impregnated, heated: it goes on the order sheet.
  • We won’t tell you jade heals, protects or changes your luck. We’ll tell you what a form has meant for two thousand years, and who carved yours.
  • Every piece ships insured, by express courier, with a photograph of your finished piece before it leaves the bench.

Read how we name stones

A carved gourd pendant held up to the light

How a stone becomes a piece

The same four steps for a US$2,200 miniature and a US$12,000 bangle. The order never changes; the stone decides everything else.

Three questions. One stone.

Not sure which intention is yours? Answer three questions and we’ll show you three pieces. No email needed.

The quiz runs in your browser and keeps nothing.

The carver

Every piece on this site is carved by Zhou Zuozhao, trained under China Arts & Crafts Master Wu Desheng, who reads the stone before drawing a line and lets the colour decide the subject.

The atelier works in several stones — nephrite, jadeite, agate and the multicoloured stones of the Alxa desert — and in gold and silver settings made to the carving, never the other way round.

Inside the atelier

Jade, across eight thousand years

Six objects from museums around the world, for anyone who wants to know what they are wearing.

Leave a wish on the wall.

In the atelier there is a wall where visitors pin what they hope for. This is the online one. Write a line; it stays here.

The first editions

Where should it go?

Nothing is charged on this page. Within 24 hours you’ll receive the order sheet for your piece — stone, metal, weight, lead time, duty estimate — and a secure payment link.

By requesting, you agree to our returns policy and privacy note. Payment by card or PayPal via the link we send; no payment details are collected here.

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Your request is with the atelier.

Reference . We’ll write to within 24 hours with the order sheet and a secure payment link. Nothing has been charged.

If you don’t hear from us, write to hello.

Back to the editions

Inside the atelier

A small workshop, a bench by the window, and a wall of rough stone waiting to be read. Everything on this site was carved here.

The carver

Zhou Zuozhao is a senior jade-carving technician and jewellery designer, trained under China Arts & Crafts Master Wu Desheng. The lineage matters less for the title than for the method: colour first, subject second, and a refusal to dye or fill what the stone did not give.

The stones

Nephrite from Hotan and Russia, jadeite from Myanmar, agate and multicoloured desert stones from Alxa. We name each one from its report, not its nickname, and we say when a report is still pending.

A carved snake emerging from a pale stone shell

Hatching, carved where the stone turns from milk to amber.

Private commissions

Bring a stone, a date, or only a feeling. Commissions begin with a video conversation and a sketch, and no deposit is taken until you have seen the drawing. Write to hello.

Jade across cultures

Edited from public-domain and CC0 museum photographs; credits on the journal.

Back to the atelier

A letter from the bench

Once a month: the stone on the bench, what it became, and the next edition before it goes online.