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Saturday, May 1, 2010

Three high quality Qing immortals and a dragon with eye shields, all protective amulets to be stitched to children's clothing





I've purposely left these with all the traces of age, all are silver with gilt and the immortal number three still has most of his green stone eye inserts in place, these came from an Iranian jewellery dealer we met in Tucson 1999. Oussad travelled mostly by foot and paper taxi and collected these items along the silk road in South Western China during the 1980s. He said that at times he had to promise to marry the girls to successfully make the purchases from family elders. Truly, we were offered items that almost took out breath away (and would have cleaned out our gem-buying bank). These were part of my own specific interests but didn't meet our collective, strategic business aims, Barbara relented with these four I'm happy to say.

Footnote: I have 'Arts of Asia' from issue 1, I have followed Tuyet Nguyet's (foremost International Asian arts and antiques magazine) since its inception. Vol 36 #5 has an article that I commend to those interested in further reading . . . 'Summoning animal protection' Special shoes and garments for Chinese children by John E. Vollmer & Glenn Roberts - page 98.

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