China Natural Stone “Painting” Moonlight Earth

This Chinese extraordinary natural stone “painting” of what appears to be a black and golden image of an earthen section of stone is called a dream stone Shih-hua.

Or what do you see ?

These stone paintings 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 rich mahoogany 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:

Beautiful Rich black, white, and golden colors.
Framed under glass
Dimensions:
Frame: 13 inches high and 20.75 inches wide.
Site: 7 inches high and 14.25 inches wide.

Provenance: Private Chinese collection, Yunnan, China.

History of “Moonlight” dream stone paintings:

Moonlight stone paintings are a unique style of dream stones that Chinese collectors think of as moonlight reflecting off water.
Dream stone paintings also 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.

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