• #STN-117 Antique Carved Stone Plaque with the Story of Calligrapher Wang-Xi-Zhi

    Ancient Stone Collection

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    (刻王羲之伴鵝趕路舊石板) This thick antique architectural stone plaque with deep relieved style in carving tells the story of the famous Easter Jin Dynasty (東晉 317-420) calligrapher Wang-Xi-Zhi (大書法家王羲之) and his pet goose. Of all the stories about him and his love for goose from which he obtained much of his inspiration for practicing calligraphy, there were two well-known versions below: During the Jin Dynasty, Daoism(道家思想)was very popular. Many scholars and social elites favored the freer styles of life. Wang-Xi-Zhi had a high position in the court at the time when he resided in Shan-Yin (山陰), near the famous Daoist’s mountain Tian-Tai-Shan (天台山) in Zhejiang province, plus he was already very famous for his calligraphy writing. It was difficult for the ordinary people to obtain a copy of his calligraphy writing. One day, he encountered a group of well cultivated beautiful white goose and was quite taken by their beauty. But the goose belonged to a Daoist priest. Wang asked to buy them. The priest suggested that he traded the goose with Wang’s calligraphy writing for a Daoist’s manual “Huang-Ting-Jing, 黃庭經” (Some thought might be Dao-De-Jing). Wang happily wrote the 136 characters of the Manuel without hesitation and hurdled home the group of goose afterword. The other story was that Wang-Xi-Zhi heard about a beautiful large white goose who could made beautiful sound. After visiting, he offered to buy the goose from the owner, an older lady. But she did not know whom Wang-Xi-Zhi was at the time and did not want to sell the goose to him. Later, Wang decided to visit her again with some other friends from the court. The old lady heard the officials were coming to visit this time, she decided to kill the goose and prepared a special meal for the guests coming. And of course, when Wang and his friends got there, the goose had sadly been gone. Great Tang Dynasty poet Li-Bo (李白) and Du-Fu (杜甫) liked Wang-Xi-Zhi’s work so much, they both wrote poems about him and his goose. The above stories and more can be found on internet. This stone plaque is carved in a simple style with Two figures, Wang-Xi-Zhi and his young attendant carrying a Gu-Qin instrument, with a goose walking in front of them. The look of the two figures naively striking in their big steps with the goose turning its head, looking back at them with a twisted neck created almost a surreal feel for the artwork. This piece is probably about two feet or longer in length.

  • STN-406 A Pair of Ming Dynasty Stone Bases with Carved Floral Design

    Ancient Stone Collection

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    (一對大型明代雕花石座) This is a very interesting Ming Dynasty carved stone base out of a pair. They are quite large, probably two feet or more in diameter each. The base is carved out of one piece of stone with three different shapes in one: the round top (圓), the hexagonal middle (六角), and a plain square bottom (方 ). Both the top and the middle section are carved with bold designs of different floral patterns with fully open blossom facing towards the front-a pattern seen often in Chinese woodwork from the Ming period. The carved design in the middle section, with various different depths of the surfaces, looks like a varied Ruyi (如意; to-your-wish) design with the flowers shaping like clouds, carved in a relieved style, and being housed in two cave-like spaces; while the flowers (with leaves) on the top section, though also carved in the relieved style, are contrarily and fully exposed to the view. This kind of playing with the concept of the Yin (陰; 陰刻) and the Yang (陽; 陽刻) is fairly common in Chinese woodwork and in stone work as well. Also, when one looks closely at the Ruyi design, the whole design actually looks like a face (臉; 獸面) as well with the middle being the “nose” and flowers being the “eyes”. And when looking at that “nose”, one also sees a slender figure-like carved feature. This type of personification is not uncommon in Chinese woodwork and other types of Chinese carving as well. This piece reminds me of the saying “seeing the world through a grain of sand” besides that I love its boldness in design! A Ruyi design often can shape like a cloud (雲朵), a Ling-Zhi (靈芝; Chinese medicinal mushroom), or a heart shape.

  • STN-241 Carved Three-Sectioned Ancient Stone Long Bench w "Continuing"Design

    Ancient Stone Collection

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    (明或早清刻延年長石凳 ) This is the side view of the top of a very long ancient Chinese stone bench, possibly from the 17th or 18th century. The bench is composed of three sections: the horizontal top that is probably 5, 6 feet long or longer, and the two short pedestals to support the top. The carved design is a “continuing” design. If one traces the design with one's finger from the bottom up, the design never breaks until the end of the bench. This type of continued design stemmed from Chinese philosophy that people, heaven, and earth are one unity as the universe cycles in its own cycle, never ceases. This piece is part of Shen's vast collection of ancient Chinese stone objects that are mostly architecturally based. This collection can offer great opportunity in studying ancient Chinese architecture, art, design, Chinese philosophy, and culture.

  • #STN-002

    Ancient Stone Collection

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  • #STN-006 A Carved Black Stone Plaque of Shui-Xi Spring Delight

    Ancient Stone Collection

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    This unusual dark, almost black, carved old stone plaque was part of a building wall. It depicts a scenery of various buildings and pavilions, several different kinds of trees and rocks, as well as bridges, steps, and paths. The four characters in the middle, which one could barely see, read “Shui-Xi spring delight”. “Shui” is water, “Xi” is west. This “Shui- Xi”might be the “Shui- Xi village” , west of the old Tien-Jin city and the south shore of the Nan-Yuan-He South Channel, a famous private cluster of old Chinese gardens and buildings created by a wealthy merchant, “Cha” family, who prospered from selling salt, in 1700's. Apparently, it was so beautiful, not only it had attracted many writers and artists, Qian-Long Emperor also visited this place four times. Some literature researchers thought that the various landscape scenes in the famous classic “Dream of the Red Chamber” might have a tie with Shui-Xi village as the Cha family and the family of the author of the book were very close. During the Daoguang period (1821-1850), this village was partially rebuilt and a “Plum Blossom Poetry Club” was formed. Unfortunately, this site was later destroyed and rebuilt with other modern buildings. (Source from https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/水西庄)

  • #STN-013

    Ancient Stone Collection

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  • #STN-014

    Ancient Stone Collection

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  • #STN-023(Pair)

    Ancient Stone Collection

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  • #STN-027 Ancient Carved Stone Hitching Post

    Ancient Stone Collection

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    An interesting ancient stone hitching post carved with a group of figures including a foreign soldier, a demon like face or fu-lion, and what looks like a puppy, a baby lion, or a monkey.

  • #STN-028

    Ancient Stone Collection

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  • #STN-033 Ming Dynasty Carved Stone Post of A Young Immortal Riding on An Auspicious Fu-Lion

    Ancient Stone Collection

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    This Ming Dynasty stone statue of a young boy riding on a Fu-lion (commonly called Fu-dog) is the top portion of a stone hitching post. The human figure derived from a Daoist figure called ”青獅童子 (Green-Lion Boy Guardian)”,whose specialty is in the field of Chinese astrology related to I-Jing and Ba Gua. Although the carved characters on the banner the boy is holding can not be read from the photo, this figure riding on a Fu-lion probably embeds a meaning of "Summoning Wealth and Blessing (招財納福)" as 福 (Fu) is Blessing. It also implies being able to ward of the evil as Fu-lion is often associated with such auspicious meaning.

  • #STN-037

    Ancient Stone Collection

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