Pair of Chinese Qing Silver Pendants

This pair of silver pendants is pierced and engraved with flower basket motifs and suspended double pairs of fish motifs. The pendants have the designs on both sides, front and back and so are reversible.

Such small items of silver jewellery were popular among merchant classes in southern China during the later Qing Dynasty, in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

According to Duda (2002), during the Communist era, such jewellery appears to have been collected by the authorities and held centrally, and then in the 1970s, the Beijing government eager to earn foreign exchange decided to sell off its holdings of such jewellery to Western dealers, often by the kilogram. The jewellery poured out of China, mostly to the United States. Such jewellery has now become much more scarce.

The pendants are in a fine, stable and wearable condition.