Necklace

Five emperor coins, worn at the neck rather than hung at the door. Old Chinese coins are round with a square hole, the round standing for heaven and the square for earth, so to wear them is to carry a small balance of both....

The phurba, worn at the neck rather than kept on the altar. A ritual dagger from Tibetan Buddhist practice, the phurba's three-sided blade stands for cutting through the three things that cloud a clear mind: ignorance, attachment, and aversion. Worn as a pendant, it...

A jade gourd, narrow at the waist and round at the base.The hulu is a calabash, dried and hollowed, once carried by physicians and wandering monks to hold medicine and water. Its shape became its meaning: a wide mouth that draws things in, a...

A Pixiu (貔貅) coiled around a ring of black obsidian, carved edge to edge. Obsidian is volcanic glass, born of fire and cooled in an instant. Long worn for protection and grounding, it is the stone reached for when the day pulls in too...

A small bottle of rose quartz, made to hold the scent you wear. Rose quartz is the stone of the open heart, worn for centuries for gentleness, the kind you offer others and the harder kind you offer yourself. Here it is hollowed into...

A small jade fox, curled with its tail around itself.The nine-tailed fox of Chinese folklore is a shapeshifter, clever and charming and never quite pinned down, kept as a charm for allure and for the sharp kind of intelligence that reads a room before...

The Tiger of the Chinese zodiac, carved in cinnabar beneath its seal character. Cinnabar is the fire-red stone of the Chinese tradition, long worn to guard vitality and keep good fortune close. Its colour alone was considered protective, the red that meets whatever the...

This is a one-of-a-kind piece. Each opal is unique, and once sold, it will not be restocked. This pendant honours the raw beauty of Australian opal, one of the world's most revered precious gemstones. Known for its natural depth and vivid play of colour,...

A pavilion among pines, carved into a tablet of jade.This is shanshui, the mountain-and-water landscape Chinese painters have returned to for a thousand years: somewhere high, quiet and far from the city, kept as a picture of where you would go if you could....

A smooth tablet of pale jade, left uncarved.No engraving, no symbol, just the stone and the light moving across it. Jade is kept close in Chinese homes for calm and continuity, and an uncarved piece makes that its whole argument. The cloudiness inside is...

A jade circle barely wider than a fingertip.This is the bi disc reduced to its smallest form, the open centre still carrying the old meaning of a clear path. It is the piece for someone who wants jade on every day rather than for...

Two charms in one carving: the pixiu, and the hulu gourd beneath it.The pixiu is the winged creature of Chinese myth with an appetite for gold and no way to pass it, so what it takes in, it keeps. The hulu does the same...