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.

Min-Jung Kim
Curator, Asian Design & Society
June 2008

Maker unknown

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, the antiques street.

Dress accessory, toggle, in the shape of 'lingzhi' or sacred fungus, symbol of immortality, wood, maker unknown, China c. 1700-1940

Wooden carved forrm in the shape of a traditional Chinese mushroom.

Toggles functioned as weights to counterbalance dress accessories such as tobacco pouches.

Made: China; 1695 - 1945


Owned: Morrison, Alastair;

Owned: Morrison, Hedda;

No marks

92/522

1695 - 1945

40 mm

44 mm

30 mm