Chinese extraordinary natural stone “painting” with arts and crafts hardwood frame

Extraordinary Sea and Mountains View

This Chinese extraordinary natural stone “painting” of a mountain range in white and gray colors 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″ thick and is cut from a large slab of rough material revealing incredible patterns in soft white and gray colors. Its weight is surprisingly modest- easily hung with standard hardware.

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:

Dimensions:
Frame 11 inches high and 15 inches wide.
Site 6.5 inches high and 10.5 inches wide.

Provenance: Private Chinese collection, Yunnan, China.

History of “White and Gray” dream stone paintings:

“White and Gray” dream stone paintings known in China as Shui Mo or Chinese painting stone, were cut from stone found on Shuang Yang mountain in Dali mountains Captivating compositions, they might remind us of a long string of rugged mountain caps from a distance. These dream stones are cut from a scarce regional stone yielding notoriously “fuzzy” detailed paintings. To find examples possessing clear, contrasting detail like this one is indeed a rare find. Fine stone paintings like this example are rare as access to and availability of resource material diminishes. After a thin coating of wax is carefully applied to its surface to protect and reveal its beautiful subtle colors, this stone painting is signed upper right position with poetic verse and seal of an artisan who describes its majestic beauty.

Reference: Dreaming of Dreamstones China’s extraordinary natural stone paintings, Schneible Fine Arts. Dreaming of Dreamstones – World’s first comprehensive English text publication covers China’s extraordinary natural stone paintings, by author and dream stone lecturer Douglas Schneible, 35 pages, softcover, ISBN 978-0-578. See photos.

We have been dealing in authentic Chinese natural stone paintings, Japanese antique garden ornaments, lanterns and water basins for many years. Our president personally travels to China and Japan each year to meet his network partners who assist him in finding best examples. He personally inspects each work of art to ensure its old age, authenticity and quality condition. After accumulating a group, they are imported to Vermont and Maine in large containers. This method keeps shipping costs low and enables us to offer them to you at reasonable prices. We carefully pack and ship to clients all-over the USA and at reasonable shipping costs.

Lifetime guarantee of authenticity:
All of our Asian works of art come with our lifetime authenticity guarantee.