Leading expert Robert D. Mowry, who is Harvard Art Museum’s Curator Emeritus and a senior consultant to Christie’s, describes them as ‘favoured stones that the Chinese literati displayed in the rarefied atmosphere of their studios’. The Chinese scholar drew inspiration from the natural world; he did not go out into nature to paint or compose poetry, explains Christie’s specialist Pola Antebi. Rather, he worked within the seclusion of his studio and used these ‘representations of mountains’ as inspiration for his work.  Like a landscape painting, the rock represented a microcosm of the universe on which the scholar could meditate within the confines of his studio or garden.

In his mid-19th century book Tanshi — or Chats on Rocks — Liang Jiutu stated that ‘in collecting, it is the choice of rocks that comes first. If the rock does not seem like a painting by the powers of nature, then you shouldn’t choose it.

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