Chinese Warring States Gold and Turquoise-Inlaid Bronze Garment Hook

This long, unusually fine, garment hook is of cast and chiselled bronze, is lavishly decorated with gold and turquoise, and with a back overlaid with sheet silver. The top end terminates with a stylised dragon’s head with a pointed snout, cast with short horns, and a forehead inlaid with turquoise. This functions as the actual hook component.

The body of the hook is inlaid with turquoise cabochons, either cut in tear-drop shapes or formed as scales, and interspersed with overlaid gold.  At the back of the hook is a gilded knob, engraved with a pattern of whorls. The form of the body of the hook is D-shaped in cross section.

The turquoise is of bright green, and this contrasts beautifully with the thickly overlaid gold gilding.

The bronze component would have been cast with the lost-wax process. Indeed, the production of such a garment hook would have been a labour-intensive process with a designer, a caster, a lapidarist, a gold sheet worker, a silver worker and an adhesives maker all being involved in the production.

Garment hooks (daigou or, in ancient Chinese xipi) were both decorative and utilitarian.  They were used to secure the belt, or to fasten a sword or other implement to the belt. The semi-precious material from which many were crafted most probably was assumed to have protective or talismanic properties. The lustrous and colourful material used to decorate such hooks also meant that such hooks served as a type of jewellery for men, demonstrating position, power and affluence.

Comparable bronze garment hooks with a similar dragon head finial and inlaid with turquoise stones, dated to either the Warring States period of the Han dynasty, are in various museum collections such as the British Museum and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Much of the inlay in this example is present, and overall, it is in a fine, stable condition.

The garment hook is presented on a black, custom-made display stand.