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VSANA News 2024 

November 2024

Important Donation to Paris City Museum of Asian Art (Musée Cernuschi)

“Dragon and Clouds”

In late November 2024, Joseph and Jana Roussel  donated an outstanding Chinese Mohu Scholar’s stone to the Paris City Museum of Art. This stone originated in Liujiang County in Guangxi Province. The wood based was carved in Jiangsu region. The Mohu stone is 58 cm high and 56 cm wide. The base is 26 cm high. 

Collected in Southern China, this rock was transported almost two thousand kilometers to Suzhou, a city known since the 11th century for classical gardens, by a merchant specializing in scholar's rocks 供石 (gōngshí). Although Mohu stone didn't join the list of highly prized stones until the early 1990s, it corresponds closely to the aesthetics of Chinese literati. It bears witness to the millennia-old Chinese fascination with stones. It closely resembles Taihu stones, one of the four classical types (Lingbi, Taihu, Ying, Kun), all from eastern China, whose sources have been exhausted for centuries. Like Taihu stone, Mohu is a limestone formed by the erosion of lake water. Mohu stone meets the four quality criteria defined by Mi Fu (1051-1107), the great scholar and collector of rocks: Shou (thin), Zhou (wrinkles), Lou (channels), and Tou (holes). This rock fascinates the eye with its multiple passages and sinuous shapes, giving it an appearance of lightness. Despite its considerable mass, it seems to whirl around and projects multiple images, including a dragon emerging from the clouds. Its grey-black skin is covered with white lines of varying thickness. Its complex, multi-dimensional form posed great challenges to the stand-builder, who had to identify six distinct points to marry base and rock.

Provenance: Acquired in March 2006 by the current owner from the Shu Shi Shan Fang gallery (Suzhou) Gallery owner: He Shi Chuang
Gifted to the Cernuschi, the Asian Arts Museum of the City of Paris, in November 2024.