Scholar's Rock
Not on view
This natural piece of limestone, gray with a faint tint of green, resembles a rugged mountain in miniature. Its rough surface, layered with horizontal fissures and interspersed with indentations, evokes cliff walls marked with eons of natural erosion. It sits on a wooden stand made precisely to fit its base. The stand is supported on six short legs and decorated with a row of hemispheric bosses on its outer rim.
The object's dramatic silhouette and fine linear texture are characteristic of the highly prized ornamental Lingbi rocks from Lingbi County, Anhui Province. The structure and the decorative program of the wooden stand embody the elegance and refinement of craftsmanship peculiar to 18th-century Chinese wood carving.
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