This Chinese extraordinary natural stone painting of a mountain range piqued by pink mountain flowers 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 “fan” shaped stone painting is approximately 1/4″ thick and is cut from a large slab of rough material revealing incredible natural patterns in soft pink, white and dark green colors.

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 can be seen.

Dimensions:

Frame: 11″ high and 11″ wide.