Chinese Wood Picture Stone, Based

A gray sky, a muddy riverbank and a lightning bolt down the front. All of it in stone.

This picture stone on a base comes from Guangxi, China, and is stone and wood. Chinese scholars have long prized stones whose natural markings suggest landscapes, and picture stones are usually cut and polished to show the scene off. This one is a tall rectangular block, its gray faces crossed by bands of rust, ochre and dark brown above a ragged white shore. A thin pale vein runs down from the top like a crack of light. It sits on a dark wooden stand with short bracket feet. It is 4 inches wide, 4 deep and 9.75 high.

Nobody painted it, which is the whole point.