Chinese Toggle Depicting Bird with Beads

Lavender bird with a hooked beak trails a long, curling tail feather.

This toggle depicting bird with beads is from China, and dates to the 19th century. It is jade. Many toggles carried auspicious symbols drawn from wordplay, so a monkey, whose word can sound like the word for Marquis, suggested high rank, and a carp suggested success in civil service examinations. Soft lilac-grey in color, the bird figure has a heavy curved beak, a rounded head and a long tail sweeping behind in one curl. Overlapping feathers are carved across the wing. It stands on a low twisted branch. The polish is smooth and even. It is 4 inches wide, 1 deep and 1.75 high.

A small, serious bird with a formidable plume.