A SIGNED DUAN INKSTONE

18TH CENTURY

Details

A SIGNED DUAN INKSTONE
18th Century
Of squared outline, the face with a circular recession for grinding, inscribed above with a quatrain, Tian que dong nan, Di que shi bei, Tian yuan di fang, You ru ci shi, and signed by the artist, Jin Long, the beveled edge below the grinding surface inscribed bai er yan tian yi pin, with Jin Long's seal in the lower left corner and two collector's seals, Zui Ri bao yong (art name) and He Yuan chang along the left side, the characteristically fine quality Guangdong duan stone varying in color from deep purplish-brown in the smooth areas to reddish-brown in the textured ones
5in. (14cm.) long

Lot Essay

Jin Long (1687-1763), known as one of the 'Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou', was most famous for the 'gothic' style script he developed.

The first inscription is a clever poetic description of the attributes of the stone, reading 'To the face, there are losses to the east and to the south; underneath, there are losses to the west and to the north; the face is round, the underside square...'. In the short inscription, bai er yan tian yi pin, the collector proudly states that this stone is one of the nicest in his collection of 120.