S925 Silver Golden Toad Rectangular Relief Pendant

The golden toad has only three legs. The setting is deliberate rather than lazy: the three-legged toad is singled out in folk usage, and one leg short is what separates it from an ordinary toad and turns it into a numinous creature. The placing of the three legs varies as well, two front feet planted with the hind foot behind the tail, or one in front and two behind. The Huainanzi says there is a toad in the moon, and on Han relief stones a toad is often carved inside the moon, existing alongside the later jade rabbit for a time. In early use the toad stood for the moon, not for money.

In the story of Liu Hai teasing the golden toad, the toad spits coins and Liu Hai dangles a string of them; the string drops and the toad jumps after it. The story is everywhere in New Year prints, wood carving and paper cuts. Liu Hai himself has a history: among the five northern patriarchs of Daoism there is Liu Haichan, named Liu Xuanying, styled Haichanzi. The Liu Hai of the story and this patriarch were merged by folk telling, and inside and outside the play are no longer kept apart. The coins in the picture are usually strung in three or five strings; the number needn’t be exact, since what is taken is the act of stringing.

A rectangular plaque in relief needs its composition filled, with little empty space left. The toad’s body is round and takes the middle, while water waves, coin strings and lotus leaves fill the corners. The filling mustn’t compete with the subject: lines thin, masses small. Fine lines throw a lot of light on bright silver and jump forward, so filler patterns are usually cut a layer shallower than the subject, and only then does the whole read as one mass at a distance.

A long plaque hangs at the chest, and the vertical lines lengthen the neck, which suits a round face. Bright silver sits well with black, navy and dark green. If the plaque is thick, the side against the skin should be flat; made convex it will press, and you will be putting a hand to it every few steps. Don’t use too fine a chain: with the weight of a long plaque on a thin chain, the clasp goes first. The hole is at the top and the weight sits low, so the piece hangs forward. That is normal and not worth trying to correct.

Dust collects in the recesses, especially between the bumps on the toad’s body. Brush it dry with a soft brush and don’t rinse it, because water left to dry leaves marks. Use the cloth on raised surfaces only and leave the dark in the recesses, so the bumps keep their volume. If you must use silver dip, three seconds and out; any longer and the whole piece goes white and has to be worn back. If every bump is the same size they look like pockmarks; uneven sizes are what read as a toad’s skin.