White Copper Gourd Guan Gong Pendant Necklace

Guan Gong is usually shown holding his blade or reading the Spring and Autumn Annals at night; paired with a gourd he is rare. The one rules by might, the other by blessing, and their temperaments pull against each other. The maker put the gourd below as a base and the figure above, adjusted the proportions, and the conflict resolves: heavy above and steady below, like a small stele. The waist of the gourd pinches in, so the eye divides the piece into two registers, and Guan Gong can only occupy the upper one.

Guan Yu's standing in folk religion rose step by step. He was ennobled as a prince in the Song, and in the Wanli era of the Ming as the Great Emperor Who Subdues Demons of the Three Realms, Holy Emperor Guan; Daoism took him into its pantheon under that title. Merchants honoured him as a martial god of wealth, valuing the word righteousness: partners who do not cheat each other, accounts kept clear. That layer means more than bringing in treasure, and it was the original intent behind the guild halls the old merchant associations built. In New Year prints Guan Gong usually wears a green robe, has a red face and a beard reaching his belly, and holds a copy of the Spring and Autumn Annals.

The gourd's point lies in the sound. Hu matches the word for blessing and lu matches the word for emolument, and the homophones make the phrase fortune and salary, the easiest auspicious wording there is. In Daoism the gourd has another use: holding elixir pills, capturing spirits, a single gourd containing heaven and earth. The History of the Later Han, in the life of Fei Changfang, tells of an old man selling medicine in the market who hung a gourd at his stall and jumped into it when the market closed, and this is where the phrase hanging the gourd comes from. As a pendant the gourd draws on the older of those two meanings. The mouth of a gourd should be small, since only a small mouth gathers qi; an old saying among makers of vessels.

The tablet is gourd-shaped, the waist clearly pinched, small above and large below. The figure of Guan Gong sits on the belly of the gourd and takes up more than half the face, with a ring of blank space left around it, either carved with cloud pattern or left plain. The hanging tablet version is a single plate with a hole at the top; the necklace version comes with the chain fitted and falls at the chest. The waist of a gourd is narrow and concentrates stress, so the hole must not be drilled through the waist; that is basic knowledge for anyone making this kind of tablet. The back is usually left plain, though some buyers ask for a name to be cut, and once it is cut the piece cannot be given away.

Guan Gong's beard is the first thing to wear smooth, since fine incised lines cannot take repeated fingering. To preserve it, handle the face less and hold the piece by the edge when taking it off. Oxidation works its way into the lines of the beard, and once it darkens each hair reads more clearly. Coil the necklace version when putting it away and do not let the gourd's waist catch on the corner of the box; under long pressure it will bend. Once green corrosion starts it cannot be wiped off, only polished away a layer, so damp has to be kept out beforehand.