Chinese Scholar's Rock

Holes go clean through it, so the sky gets to be part of the sculpture.

This scholar's rock comes from Yunnan Province, China, in stone on a hardwood stand. Chinese connoisseurs traditionally prized stones that were thin, perforated, wrinkled and openwork, qualities meant to suggest mountains shaped by time. This pale, buff-colored stone rises in irregular lobes, pierced by a scatter of round openings of different sizes. A beak-like spur juts out at the top, and the surface is pitted and worn. It sits in a fitted, rounded hardwood base in dark red-brown. It is 6.75 inches wide, 3.75 deep and 10.5 high.

Full of holes, and better for every one.