S925 Silver Lion Biting Sword Bagua Pendant

The sword lion belongs on the lintels of old houses in southern Fujian and around Tainan. A lion holds a sword in its mouth, a bagua or the character for king painted on its forehead, worked as a relief and set into the wall, sometimes painted on a boat's bow instead. It used to be fixed above the door frame, facing the mouth of the street, to ward off evil and block the force that comes straight at you. Walk the old streets in that part of the country and a few weathered examples are still there. Lintel sword lions are usually clay sculpture or shard mosaic; the colour goes with the years, but the sword stays.

This piece brings the sword lion down to pendant size. The lion's head faces straight out, the mane curled into snail-shell coils set in rows; the sword runs crosswise from the mouth with the point to one side, not downward — downward it looks as if the mouth had dropped half of what it was holding. The bagua sits behind the head as a ground pattern, more discreet than putting it on the front. In the composition the mouth is the centre, and both sword and mane radiate from it. The blade is left plain, without ornament; too much there and it steals the head's scene.

The bright finish is kept for the lion's forehead and the bridge of its nose, the hollows left dark, and that is what gives the face its relief. Chased lines must not be too close together; crowded into this small an area they smear into a patch of grey. The teeth have to be distinguishable one from another before the lion's fierceness is half contained; the other half comes from the eyes, where the pupil needs a little convexity for a highlight to land and bring it alive. A chased cut should go through in one pass — going back over it leaves a burr. The head takes most of the space, the sword shows only a section, and that is enough.

Use a dark cord. Red works as well; the sword lion belongs with the red paint of a lintel anyway. Men wear it more, and it suits both round and stand-up collars; the pendant sits at the centre of the chest and does not need to hang askew. In summer, sweat collects in the hollow of the lion's mouth — press it with a soft cloth at home, do not dig at it with a pin, since every dig adds a scratch. Keep the red of the cord from being too bright; a deeper red holds better.

The attitude to this kind of subject is "seen and done" — no need to stare at it daily. Some people buy it for a child, as a steadying charm; some wear it themselves for the sense of something firm. Explanations differ from place to place and do not need reconciling. Silver oxidises, and a wipe is enough when it dulls; do not re-polish it over and over to keep it snow-white, or the edges will round off. Plenty of people hang it in the car, so that it is there when they look up.