Belt Toggles

These are some of the 249 toggles collected in Peking by Hedda and Alastair Morrison. Most of them were purchased from markets outside Chongwenmen Gate, and in Liulichang, the antiques street. The toggles functioned as weights to counterbalance dress accessories such as tobacco pouches. They are similar to Japanese netsuke in terms of their function, though are less well known. The netsuke tradition, however, is thought to have originated in China during the Song dynasty, 970-1279. Toggles were made from a variety of materials including ivory, wood, metal, amethyst, turquoise and jade. Their motifs were often symbolic, with auspicious connotations. Alastair recalls: 'Most of the toggles which Hedda and I collected were bought in Peking in 1940 and 1941. Peking in those days had many antique shops scattered all over the city as well as special fairs and markets. Collecting toggles was always interesting, indeed it was exciting. You never knew what you might turn up in the jade market, which was held early in the morning, or in some small and unexpected shop in an out of the way part of the city. One of the interesting things in the jade market was to see dealers bargaining confidently amongst themselves by a system of hand signals, their hands clasped but covered by their sleeves. Prices were low but discoveries were always accompanied by keen negotiations. No dealer expected to be paid what he first asked and they seemed to enjoy the argument as much as we did. I bought some more examples later in Shanghai and Chungking.' (From a manuscript by Alastair Morrison titled 'Talk to the Asian Society Council', 24 September 1979.)