S925 Silver Nine-tailed Fox Vintage Pendant

The Classic of Mountains and Seas, in its chapter on the southern mountains, describes Mount Qingqiu: on it lives a beast shaped like a fox with nine tails, whose voice is like a baby's, and which can eat people. That is an early attempt to imagine unfamiliar country, and it was not written down as a good omen. By the Han dynasty the nine-tailed fox had changed rank. The Baihutong lists it among creatures that appear when virtue reaches the birds and beasts, and in stone reliefs it crouches beside the Queen Mother of the West as an auspicious animal. A figure that moves from menace to blessing in the space of a few centuries; the later tales of fox spirits are a third line again, and don't quite join up with either end.

This piece takes the vintage route. The silver face is oxidised, dark left in the hollows and brightened on the high points, and the nine tails spread into a fan with each tip drawn to a taper. Tails are where casting most often goes wrong. Too fine and they snap; too coarse and they become a clump of grass with nothing to say it is a tail. Every animal subject lives or dies on a handful of lines like these. The direction of the tails has to follow the body: spreading from behind the waist and leaning slightly to one side gives the animal movement, while laying them out dead centre makes it stiff.

Vintage does not mean dirty. Done well, the black is a thin skin hidden on the shadow side of the lines; done badly, the whole piece turns grey and looks like old stock from a junk shop. Here the tones separate properly — there is a transition between the dark at the root of each tail and the brightness at the tip, and raking light shows the layers one by one. That effect comes from the order of sulphur treatment and polishing, not from brushing on a coat of black paint. Paint flakes off. Sulphur blackening goes into the metal and stays.

S925 is hard enough to be rolled thin, which is why the tails can be flat without collapsing. Silver white leans cool, and oxidised it reads as black with white coming through — easier on the eye than new silver, and less likely to look tired, because its age is designed rather than worn in. It is lighter than a copper pendant of the same size, sits against the chest without dragging the neckline open, and doesn't feel stifling in summer sweat. Softness has its price: a knock leaves a small dent, but a shallow one, unlikely to break a piece off.

The pendant falls below the collarbone. A dark cotton cord is the steadiest choice; ink black or deep red can carry it, where a pale cord makes people look at the cord first. It works on men and women alike. The fox shape is long and lean, takes up little room, and doesn't dig in when tucked inside a shirt collar. Some find the subject too mystical for their taste. I'd say it is among the more literary of the auspicious beasts: no fangs, no glaring eyes, lines that flow rather than threaten. Worn dark, brighten the high points with a cloth and leave the black in the recesses — that black is the whole intention, and polished clean it looks fake.