White Copper Awakening Lion Pendant

The waking lion is a southern lion, and it comes from Guangdong. The heads made around Foshan and Nanhai have a high domed forehead, a single horn on top, eyes as big as brass bells, white brows and beard, and a long fringe hanging from the chin. The whole build is nothing like the northern lion, which aims at a real animal. The southern lion follows the legendary beast of the new year and has always been allowed to exaggerate. The dance divides into civil and martial: the civil lion plays with a ball, the martial one goes up the poles. Plucking the greens is the finish, the lion taking the lettuce down from a height, and the riskier the reach the louder the crowd.

A real lion head is built rather than carved. Bamboo splints make the frame, paper is pasted over it, colour goes on, then the brows and beard of rabbit fur, and a single head runs through dozens of steps. The craft is on the national list of intangible heritage. Not many makers are left. What do you look at? Whether the ridge down the forehead is straight, whether the two eyes open symmetrically, whether the curve at the corner of the mouth has sagged.

The pendant takes the head straight on, the mane curling up in whorls like inlaid shell, or like cloud heads. The horn in the middle of the forehead is cut very short, barely a bump, and you only see it from the side; face on, it reads as a knot. I like that handling. It does not pull the eye, but the person wearing it knows it is there. The mouth is half open with the teeth in a row, blunt rather than pointed, so nothing pricks your thumb.

The ground colour of white copper is a greyish white, which suits a dense pattern like this. Let the dark settle and the layers of the mane come forward. Polished too bright, the same head blurs into a white mass at arm's length. This piece keeps a few traces of hand finishing. The corners are not cut knife-straight, there is a little softness in them, and I think that is the right call.

It wears as a fairly neutral piece. Men put it on a dark cord at chest height, which lands around the second shirt button. A fine chain works on a woman too, but the pendant has real volume, and too fine a chain makes it look top heavy. The outline is round, so it layers with square plaques and long bars without a fight. White copper darkens where it meets sweat. Dust collects in the gaps between the teeth, so cut a toothbrush down to half its bristles, dip it in clean water and brush along. Do not soak the whole piece. Darkening is not damage. Polish the raised surfaces only and leave the hollows, because that is where the lion keeps its expression.