Most unusual shakudo vine leaf pendant depicting  a butterfly and a slug.Meiji period c.1880.
1 inch,1.5 with the gold bale.
Japan perceives the butterfly to be a ‘soul of the living and the dead’, as a result of the popular belief that spirits of the dead take the form of a butterfly when on their journey to eternal life.
In contrast the slug symbolises a creature of the earth,of perseverance and the origins of life.