A contemporary display can be made by combining traditional elements in new ways. Here, a Chinese Lingbi stone is used as a brush rest that is paired with a 1799 Japanese book Kyoto’s Wonderful Landscape Scenes. It is not unusual to find a Chinese stone in a Japanese scholar’s studio. This stone and book illustrate the strong link between these two elements. Writers and artists began publishing books about stone appreciation and their use in homes and gardens approximately 1,000 years ago and continue to do so to the present. Others composed poetry about stones or rendered paintings of them, often adorned with calligraphy. These products of scholars’ efforts were instrumental in building cross-cultural influences between these two Asian countries. Now, both books and stones have spread to all corners of the world as more people embrace stone appreciation.