Copper Citipati Antique Horn Chain Necklace

A necklace and a pendant are two different purchases. A pendant is the plaque alone, and you fit your own cord or chain at home; a necklace comes with the chain already made up, wearable out of the box, with the length settled for you. People who want the least trouble buy the necklace; people who like to change things buy the pendant. This one comes with its chain, and chain and pendant share the same colour and finish, so it reads as a set rather than something assembled afterwards. A chain that is short cannot be extended and one that is long cannot be cut, so fix the length before you buy.

The antiquing is the main event on a piece like this. New copper is bright, bright without depth; antiquing presses shadow into the hollows, rounds the corners and dulls the surface, and the object settles at once. Whether it was done well shows in the transitions: an even slide from light to dark is real antiquing, while a patch of black beside a patch of bright has been swabbed on with chemicals and will mottle after a few wears. On a heavily antiqued piece a smell of the chemical stays in the crevices for a few days.

Chain quality comes down to two things, the clasp and the solder joints. The clasp should open and close smoothly: too loose and it opens by itself, too tight and it takes force. Solder joints must be full; a cold joint opens after a few pulls, and a lost pendant does not come back. The links need play, each one able to turn, so the chain lies on the neck; a stiff chain stands away. Look at the joints under a loupe: small round dots, and you can see at a glance whether each is full.

Set the length by the neckline. With a crew neck or a V, the pendant looks best a palm's width below the collarbone; with a turtleneck the chain has to be longer, or the pendant sits on the collar and bulges. In summer, with less clothing, a shorter chain looks better; in winter, thick clothes swallow a short one. Run a piece of string around your neck before buying, which is more reliable than remembering a number. On a thick neck, do not choose too fine a chain; a fine one cuts into the skin.

Wearing the lords of the charnel ground out of the house takes some mental preparation. It is not a pleasing pattern: people who know it will ask, people who do not will flinch. That is all right. Tibetan imagery was never made for everyone to look at. Do not wear it to a temple or a funeral; giving way on the occasion is more dignified than a lecture. Those who believe wear it for peace of mind, those who do not can treat it as a piece of bronze, and neither is worse off.