Chinese belt toggles called 'zhuizi' are small carved ornaments used as counterweights on the cords of pipe bags and other small bags which were usually hung on men's belts.

Chinese clothes were not well provided with pockets, so bags which could be suspended from a belt were useful articles of attire. In order to fulfil its primary purpose of securing things to a belt, a toggle must have what the Chinese called a 'string eye', which could pass a string or cord.

Toggle wearing disappeared from China in the 1940s, when western style clothing replaced traditional clothing.

Dress accessory, toggle, lotus jade, maker unknown, China c. 1700-1940.

The reason for the popularity of the mushroom as a symbol in Chinese art is their fertility. The mushroom's capacity to pop up in quantity one morning from seemingly barren soil. The Chinese literati described the sudden flowering of a career, or a meteoric rise in fame, as being "like mushroom in the morning" (Ru Tong Zhao Jun). However the peasants thought only of sudden fertility in an area previously barren, and in this, too, there must have seemed to them to be a quality of magic.

The butterfly is called Hu Die, and the second character of this name makes a pun on "seventy years of age" so it is used as a symbol of longevity. In some parts of South and Central China, the first character is also pronounced like the word for happiness (Fu), so butterflies are used like the bat as a symbol of happiness. It also carries the additional meaning of a long life in which to enjoy it more fully.

(reference)

Cammann, Schuyler, Substance and Symbol in Chinese Toggles, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962, London, pp.115-116

This toggle is part of a group that was collected in Peking by Hedda and Alastair Morrison between 1940 and 1942. Most of them were purchased from markets outside Chongwenmen Gate, and in Liulichang, a street known for its antique shops.

Dress accessory, toggle, butterfly shaped mushroom, wood, maker unknown, China c. 1700-1940

Toggle made of a polished, domed circular wooden disc (button shaped), relief carved with a double image, the reverse features a cluster of nine mushrooms (similar to 92/518, 92/519) and when inverted represents a stylised butterfly on the obverse.

Made: China; 1700 - 1940

Owned: Morrison, Hedda;

Owned: Morrison, Alastair;

none

92/521

1700 - 1940

6 mm

45 mm

30 mm