Provenance, Documentation & Attribution
A discussion of the importance of provenance and good record-keeping in viewing stone appreciation.
By Thomas S. Elias, March 2022
Viewing stone collectors naturally focus on the more enjoyable aspects of the art of stone appreciation while sometimes neglecting one of the essential elements of good stone connoisseurship—provenance. Everyone enjoys the search in nature or a marketplace for an excellent stone with remarkable aesthetic features. The excitement of finding a stone that speaks to you becomes a meaningful part of your life. For some, the search is the most critical aspect. Others enjoy the challenge of determining the best methods to display stones for provocative viewing experiences. An additional less exciting part of stone appreciation should not be ignored—provenance. Defined as a record of the stone’s origin, who has owned it, when and where it was displayed in significant exhibitions, and records of its publication in books and articles, the provenance of an outstanding viewing stone can add considerable meaning and value over time.
Provenance should be essential to serious collectors. Unfortunately, most viewing stones in collections around the world lack accurate records. Stone collectors have the opportunity to raise the standard of viewing stone practices worldwide by adding provenance. Maintaining a field notebook of collecting rocks in nature is a good beginning of a sound record system. Likewise, keeping a diary of your travels and purchases in stone markets is another good practice. If we want to see some of our very best stones eventually be widely recognized as exceptional stones by members of the broader viewing stone community or residing in a museum or public garden for people to enjoy, then provenance for these stones is essential. During my professional career I served as the director of two major institutions that maintained extensive collections of natural objects. The standard practice was only to accept art objects for our permanent collections that had provenance and met our collections policies.
Provenance is determined by suitable
documentation, including supporting records, correspondence, and references. Reliable documentation is as essential for excellent viewing stones as knowing the artist created a painting or sculpture, when and where he created it, and the ownership over time.
“Spring” with the base that Murata Kenji had a woodworker make for Mr. Osgasawara’s stone. This stone is 19 cm wide, 11 cm high, and 13.5 cm deep.
Storage box (kiri-bako) for “Spring” showing front and back of the opening panel.
Let’s look at an example of good documentation by examining a Kamuikotan stone from the Ishikari River in Hokkaido, Japan. The documentation for this stone is obtained from the box writing on the front and back of the opening panel of the Paulownia wood storage box (kiri-bako) made for this stone, and more importantly, the correspondence and handwritten records kept inside the box with the rock and its base. According to these written records, the stone was collected by Ogasawara Mitsuo at 6:25 a.m. on June 25, 1971. In 1977, Ogasawara sent this stone to Murata Kenji, owner of Koju-en nursery and leader in the Japanese suiseki community, and asked Murata to name the stone, and have a base and storage box made for it. Asking an established leader to name a stone for a collector is a typical Japanese practice. Murata named this stone “Spring” because it reminded him of a freshwater spring. Murata had a box made for the stone and wrote the name “Spring” on the front of the sliding panels. On the backside, Murata wrote that “This is an excellent stone of unusual color collected by Mr. Ogasawara.” Murata Kenji sent a postcard informing him of the name he had selected and that the rosewood base and box cost 16,000 yen before he sent the box, stone, and base back to Ogasawara. The postcard is dated May 26, 1977. The completeness of the documentation is scarce in Japanese suiseki practices.
The postcard that Murata sent to Ogsawara when he was returning the stone, new base, and box to Ogsawara in 1977.
This handwritten note by Ogasawara was inserted in a small envelope and placed in the storage box with “Spring” along with the postcard. This note reads “waterpool stone, 6/25/1971, 6:25 a.m. at Kamuikotan, Ogasawara Mitsuo.”
Other types of good documentation include the publication of a stone in an exhibition catalog or book. “Spring” was exhibited in the 1988 Meihenten in Tokyo by Mr. Ogasawara and a photograph of this stone was published in the Twenty-Eight Exhibition of Japanese Suiseki Masterpieces in 1983.
We are all aware that most viewing stones have little or no true documentation because of past practices. However, this should not stop us from adopting better record-keeping practices for the stones we collected in nature or acquired from other collectors or dealers. I believe that every stone collector would prefer to acquire a stone that has documentation as opposed to a similar quality stone that does not have any documentation. Adding a stone from a well-known collector or one that has been displayed in a leading exhibition adds meaning to that stone. In 2001, I published a two-part article Mansei-en and The Kato Family. After his article was published, Saburo Kato presented me with a Kamo River stone from his personal collection. This stone is one of the most prized stones in our collection of Japanese suiseki.
Saburo Kato’s Red Kamo River stone, 13 x 10.5 x 17 cm
The value of good documentation is seen in a Chinese Ying stone that Richard Rosenblum purchased during one of his trips to China in the early 1980s. This stone was displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and discussed in Robert Mowry’s book Worlds With Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholar’s Rocks. This stone, measuring 71 x 28 cm (28 x 11 inches), was attributed without documentation to the Qing dynasty. It sold for 1,840,000 Hong Kong dollars (about $236,000) at a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong on April 7, 2014.
Attributions are frequently encountered in the world viewing stone community. This is when a stone is attributed to someone, usually a well-known collector or a high-ranking official, but without any true documentation to support the claim. Often, when a serious collector dies or decides to dispose of his collection by selling it to a dealer, that dealer will usually pass that information on to his regular customers. If the dealer has a reputation for honesty, then this information is a verbal record that should be recorded by the new owner. Verbal claims are not always reliable. If you acquire a stone from the person who actually collected the stone in nature, that information is usually reliable and should become part of a written record.
We saw this natural chrysanthemum flower stone for sale at a booth during the November 2011 Asian Pacific Bonsai and Suiseki Convention in Takamatsu, Japan. The dealer told me that this was an old stone that came from the collection of a famous collector. I was very excited about this news; however, when I asked him if he had any documentation to support this claim, he told me that the documentation was missing. My level of excitement quickly dropped and I purchased this stone at a very reasonable price. I was prepared to pay two or three times as much if it had good documentation. It truly is an outstanding stone that has been in one or more collections for a long time. It has great subtle beauty, a highly valued trait in Japanese stones. It would be more meaningful if its history followed with its previous owners.
Japanese style storage boxes (kiri bako) sometimes have writing on the panel that opens the box. If that writing was made for the stone it contains, it is can be valuable. But sometimes, the box was made at a later date and the writing by another person states that the stone was owned by someone else. This type of evidence is attribution, not documentation. It is not unusual for a dealer to take an acquired older stone and have a storage box made for that stone. A stone with a box usually increases its appeal to potential buyers.
Sadly, as stones are passed from one collector to another, sometimes via a dealer, the known provenance does not accompany the stone and valuable information is lost. Before you accept or buy a stone, ask the current owner for any documentation for the stone. Don’t pay a premium for a stone that lacks provenance.
If you don’t have a record system for your stone collection, we encourage you to start today. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate system. Most individual collections are small enough that a simple record system is sufficient. We developed a standard form we use for our stone collection. That form includes the following information: a unique identification number; the poetic names, if any; the place of origin for the stone; source if purchased or if it was a gift; date acquired; type of stone; material; dimensions; weight; base and base carver; storage box; exhibition history; publication history; and other information. To see a completed copy of our viewing stone accession record for the stone “Spring”, click here. At the very least, keep a record of who collected the stone, when, and where. This is a good beginning.
Most stone collectors do not need a more sophisticated searchable computer database for their collection. We have fewer stones to manage. Art museums and other institutions with large collections need a searchable database to manage and access the large amount of information associated with thousands of objects.
We encourage all stone collectors to maintain records for their stone collection, beginning with the most important or best stones. Try to keep those records with each stone or where someone else can access them. As a stone passes from one generation to another, the records for that stone should go with it. By doing this, we can all raise the quality of stone appreciation practices globally.
