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Set of ink sticks in lacquer box

Photo: Elizabeth Mann

Set of ink sticks in lacquer box

late 17th to early 18th century

Chinese

The Four Treasures of a scholar's studio were brush, inkstick, paper, and inkstone. Ink was made from pine soot or lampblack, mixed with glue and pressed into molds. To make liquid, ink cakes were ground with water against the hard surface of an inkstone. Inscriptions attribute these music-themed inksticks to Emperor Qianlong’s Shufang Studio. One shows a man playing a qin or zither in a bamboo grove with incense burning on the table. Others are molded in the stringed instrument’s shape—one is wrapped inside a fine brocade cloth, tied with a ribbon. White dots indicate note positions.
Lacquer and ink
1 1/4 x 4 1/4 in. (3.18 x 10.8 cm)
L.: 11 1/4 in.
Gift of Yamanaka & Co., Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection
41.54
Provenance: Gift of Yamanaka & Co., Boston, Massachusetts, January 1941 to Seattle Art Museum Fuller Collection
Photo: Elizabeth Mann
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Pure Amusements: Wealth, Leisure, and Culture in Late Imperial China, Dec. 24, 2016 - May 15, 2022.

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