There are several forms of stones that can be called quintessential Chinese. This stone is one of those. Like so many others, I find this form and shape appealing. I associate this form with classical Chinese culture-the admiration of certain unusual stones, the poems and prose written about them, and the many paintings of rocks. Soon after I entered a room lined with extraordinary viewing stones in a shop near the Hongqiao International airport in Shanghai, I noticed this stone. It was familiar. I know this stone and I had seen it earlier. But where? I touched the stone, pick it up and examined it carefully including the uneven bottom to see if it had the same surface texture as the upper parts. It did. This beautiful seven-peaked stone is large, fairly heavy, and is 44 cm wide, 24 high and 14 deep. There is one main peak flanked on both sides with secondary peaks and four smaller ones. The material is hard and the surface has an aged weathered look. It resonates when struck with a metal object. It is probably a form of dark Lingbi stone.

After a couple of minutes, I realized where I had seen this stone before, it was illustrated on the opening page of the second volume of the Suyuan Shipu (Plain Garden Stone Catalog) published by Lin Youlin in 1613. This stone was like several of the rocks illustrated in this first illustrated volume of viewing stones in China. It is famous for being the first compendium of illustrations of rocks appreciated for their aesthetic qualities. Kemin Hu wrote about some of these stones in her informative book Scholars’ Rocks in Ancient China (2002). Based upon my previous experiences and extensive travels in China over forty years, I knew this could not one of the original stones from Lin Youlin’s collection. I turned to the shop owner and asked if this stone was from the Suyuan Shipu. He slowly smiled and nodded his head yes. He told me that this stone was about to be shipped to Hong Kong to be sold in an auction. I tried to hide my rising emotions as I walked around the room and in adjoining rooms looking at other stones.

Several minutes later we returned to this stone and I asked him where did he get this stone. He smiled again and said that he made it earlier this year and it was made to look like a stone illustrated in the Suyuan Shipu. Actually, he was a master stone carver and had made many of the stones that were for sale in his show room. His craftsmanship is the highest quality of any stone carver work that I have ever seen in Asia. He told us that he has been carving Scholar stones for thirty years and have been supplying stones to collectors and dealers internationally and to stone auctions in Hong Kong.

Enhancing stones to improve their aesthetic qualities has been a well-known practice in China. It was described in Tu Wan’s Stone Catalogue of Cloudy Forest, the 12th century volume written by a stone connoisseur, and considered by authorities to be the first book about stones appreciated for their beauty. It is not illustrated, but does describe how stones were altered by shaping, chiseling, polishing and putting them back in to a lake to give them a natural aged appearance. Chinese scholar, Edward H. Schafer wrote “Twelfth century connoisseurs seem not to have put a premium on ‘natural’ stones.” Enhanced stones have been fully accepted as aesthetic objects by collectors for over 1,000 years. Throughout this period, some collectors have preferred stones that are completely natural while many others have accepted enhanced stones that appear natural. Actually, the work of high skilled artisans is so good that most people cannot tell an altered stone from a natural stone and many stones in collections today that people believe to be natural are in fact enhanced stones. While I still believe that a natural stone is the best; for many, it is not an issue, because the focus should be on the features of a stone rather than the forces that have formed the stone recently or over thousands of years.