Chinese Stone Gongshi

A row of thin dark trees along a yellow shore.

This gongshi comes from Guangxi, China, and is hulu stone on a hardwood base, of indeterminate age. Gongshi, the scholar's rocks of China, have been collected for centuries for their shape, their surface and whatever they suggest to a patient eye, then displayed in studios to aid quiet thought. This one is kidney shaped with ridged sides. Brown lines stand upright around the yellow flank and cross over the top, above a dark green-black band. Twelve and a half inches wide and six high.

It needs no water, no light and no opinion.