Chinese Stone Picture Rock, Framed

Two peaks, one cloud, no painter.

This framed picture rock comes from China and is of indeterminate age, a thin slab of natural stone whose markings happen to read as landscape. Collectors in China have long set such stones in frames and screens, treating them as paintings made by nature and as prompts for quiet contemplation. Brown slopes and a violet-grey summit climb against a pale sky, with a blue-grey cloud behind them. A rounded reddish-brown frame surrounds it all. Thirty-four inches wide.

The weather appears to be holding.