S925 Silver Zhong Kui Drunken Five Ghosts Charm

The story of Zhong Kui begins with a dream. Legend has it that Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, while ill, dreamed of a small ghost stealing his jade flute and running around the hall. Then a large ghost came in, seized the small one, chewed and ate it, and named himself Zhong Kui, a scholar from Mount Zhongnan. The emperor woke well and ordered a painter to record the figure as it had appeared. The story spread so widely that later painters all painted the same face: leopard head, curled beard, broad mouth, a soft-winged black gauze cap. Painted Zhong Kui rarely smiles. The eyes are wide and the brows knotted, and only in the drunk pictures do the brows and eyes loosen.

Drunkenness is another line entirely. Paintings often show him having had too much, cap askew, sash loose, leaning on a ghost's shoulder, eyes half open. Day to day that face could frighten anyone; drunk, it gains something human. The little ghosts beside him stop fearing him too. One steals his sword, one tugs at his hem, and the lot of them tumble into a scuffle. Folk prints call the scene "Zhong Kui drunk" or "Drunken Zhong Kui", hung at New Year and at Duanwu, for the apotropaic layer of meaning.

This piece takes that scene. The set carries six numbers, six separate small pieces, each independent, and you do not need the whole set. Choose by size and posture: on a strand, one large with two small is enough, and all six at once crowd into a heap where nobody is anybody. The six can be bought singly or as a set. Strung together on one cord they need size variation front to back, or they read as just another run of beads. Every edge on the small pieces is rounded so they do not dig into the inside of the wrist, and the whole set is chamfered.

Casting small pieces with several figures is hard because of the relations between them. Zhong Kui's mass has to dominate, and the ghosts have to be smaller without becoming dots. Silver melts low, and thin sections do not fill. Extremities such as feet and fingers come out sturdier when made a little thick, and they wear better on the wrist. With figures in silver the worst fault is uniform thickness. Zhong Kui's robe hem should be pressed thin and the ghosts' legs left round; vary the thickness and the light gains layers.

Use it as a spacer plate on a bracelet, or string one alone as a back ornament. Silver pieces knock against each other, so wear two together with a piece of leather between. Do not store it loose with hard objects; the wings of the cap are the first thing to bend. Once the silver tarnishes, black collects in the folds of the robe and reads like ink lines, and that is when this set looks its best.