Chinese Gongshi or Scholar's Rock, Based

Somebody spilled ink on a boulder. Nature did, anyway, and the bamboo came out well.

This gongshi or scholar's rock comes from Guangxi, China, in Tian Er stone of indeterminate age. Chinese scholars chose stones like this for their desks and studios, prizing surfaces that could be read as pictures and shapes that suggested peaks. This one rises in a smooth egg-like dome of cream, scattered with brown marks that run in stalks and blots, much like brushed bamboo. Thin veins web the surface. A dark fitted stand with a carved fret band sits beneath it. Twenty and a half inches high.

Painters take years to get a line that loose.