Chinese Toggle Depicting Mushrooms on Leaf

Round scrolling leaves cup a little cluster of drilled dots like a small tidy garden.

This toggle depicting mushrooms on leaf is from China, and dates to the late 19th or early 20th century. It is jade. The dragon is a popular toggle motif symbolizing wisdom, ambition and prosperity, a five-clawed version represented the emperor, and a dragon with a phoenix suggested marriage and was a wedding gift. Curling leaf shapes fold around a central hollow in this rounded, flattened piece in pale grey-white. Several round holes pierce the middle. Fine ribs mark the leaf edge, and the polish is soft with light tan staining in the recesses. It is 1.75 inches wide, 0.5 deep and 1.5 high.

Curled up neatly, with every hole in its place.