Tianhuang Seal
1 of 12
Object Label
This seal is one of the great treasures of the Brooklyn Museum’s Chinese collection. It is carved in the form of a mountain cliff; the seal-carver exploited the dark natural veins in the stone to create the landscape. Beneath the waterfall is a tiny boat carrying the early-eleventh-century poet Su Shi past the Red Cliff. Su Shi’s prose poem recording his trip is famous in classical Chinese literature. On the bottom of the seal, Qian Song (1807–1860), one of the most influential scholar seal-carvers of the Qing dynasty, engraved the name of a studio for one of his associates, a man named Chunru, who would have impressed the bottom of the seal in red seal-paste on works of painting and calligraphy in his studio.
Caption
Qian Song Chinese, 1807–1860. Tianhuang Seal, first half 19th century. Tianhuang (heavenly yellow) stone, 3 3/4 x 1 1/4 x 1 1/4 in. (9.5 x 3.2 x 3.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection, 1996.122. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1996.122_side1_PS9.jpg)
Collection
Collection
Artist
Title
Tianhuang Seal
Date
first half 19th century
Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
Period
Qing Dynasty
Geography
Place made: China
Medium
Tianhuang (heavenly yellow) stone
Classification
Dimensions
3 3/4 x 1 1/4 x 1 1/4 in. (9.5 x 3.2 x 3.2 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alastair B. Martin, the Guennol Collection
Accession Number
1996.122
Rights
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
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