S925 Silver Gourd New Chinese Style Pendant

The gourd turns up early in Chinese objects. It held medicine; it held wine; in Taoist painting it hangs from an immortal's belt. Folk usage borrowed the pun on fulu — fortune and official salary — and the vine that runs long and bears many fruits, and made the gourd a sign of a household that continues. In painting the vine is usually drawn as one unbroken line. Dowry chests used to be painted with gourds, and so were paper window cuts, for exactly that reason. The shape carries no obvious gender, and looks no more awkward on a man than on a woman.

This one is an exercise in subtraction. Traditional gourd pendants like to add scrolling vines, cloud heads, a little cluster of dangles; all of that is gone here, leaving a single plain form. The waist line stays, but the two lobes are drawn in more cleanly than the old model. A plain piece is judged on its making: the curves have to be even, the waist has to sit true, and a millimetre off shows. S925 sterling silver has a whiter base tone and a soft, unhurried reflection; there is a lot of open surface at the front, so light travelling across the curve pulls into a thin bright band and goes dark again as you turn it. The lustre is half-matte, not the kind of shine that sits on the surface like plating.

The cord needs no ceremony. Plain cotton, a fine silver chain, a length of dark leather all hold it, and none of them competes with a shirt collar. Do not go too fine with the chain — a very fine one lets the pendant hang forward and sit crooked at the neck; too thick and it looks like a lock plate on a string. A plain chain just over a millimetre is right, falling two fingers below the collarbone. Take it off under a high collar: silver against a sweaty neck goes dull within a day. Leather should be soft; a stiff cord will fray the collar.

It is a safe gift, too. The gourd gives you something to say without dragging spirits into it; an older relative will not find it presumptuous, and a younger one will not find it fusty. Add a plain cord and it can be worn straight away, no explanation needed. Silver's hardness comes from the 7.5 per cent of other metal in the mix: fine silver is too soft to hold a narrow waist, and the alloy is what lets the shape stand, at the cost of oxidising over time. Keep it in a sealed bag when it is not worn. If it dulls, polish with a silver cloth in one direction — not toothpaste, whose grit turns a polished face hazy.

One small thing: the base of a gourd is round, so it rolls on a table. Do not leave it near the edge; one fall and there is a dent in it.