This Chinese extraordinary round natural stone figural painting of Buddha in the High Mountain is called a dream stone, Shih-hua. They are cut from historic Dali marble found in the Cangshan mountains of western China. These mysterious mountains, unique in the world, are known for yielding incredible and fantastic natural landscaped works of art created over tens of millions of years from mineral inclusions that affected the process of ancient organic material which transformed into limestone and finally resulted in marble, a metamorphic hard stone.

This art form is centuries of years old since the Ming dynasty. Dream stones became favored art in the west particularly since the 19th century when French collectors named them Pierres de reve.

This thin marble stone painting is approximately 1/4 inch thick and is cut from a large slab of rough material revealing incredible natural patterns in soft white and dark green colors. Its weight is surprisingly modest- easily hung with standard hardware.

Rarely do Chinese collectors find or offer up an unusual "figural" painting of recognizable people, characters or things. When we were offered this "Buddha in the Mountain" (the dark vertical image paying homage to nature’s beauty in the right most 3pm position) work of art we snapped it up for our gallery and now it is available, a one in a life time opportunity.

On occasion, private collectors would invite an artisan to inscribe a poetic description onto their more important dream stones and in this case the artists’ seal mark and calligraphy

Translation reads: Water runs beauty High Mountain is beautiful, nice White Stone

Dimensions:

Frame: special custom frame 20 inches high and 20 inches wide.
Site: 12 inches diameter

Provenance: Private Chinese collection, Yunnan, China.

Translation: “Buddha appear in the mountain while running water is beautiful”