A large inscribed 'Lanting gathering' green inkstone Song Dynasty

of rectangular form and grey-green in tone, the upper surface carved with a scene depicting two scholars sitting in a pavilion next to a bridge crossing a flowing river, surrounded by pine and willow trees, the water surface forming the smooth palette, the water on the far side of the bridge depressed forming the ink well, the sides carved with a continuous figural landscape depicting the remaining forty scholars of the Lanting (Orchid Pavilion) gathering, the hollowed underside carved with geese splashing in water and on a riverbank among weeds under a willow tree under swirling clouds, the top left corner inscribed with the Lanting shi (Poem of the Orchid Pavilion) by Hua Mao, one of the attendees of the gathering, in zhuanshu, with a further inscription zhu cha shang jian on the top border

Chugoku no meigen, Gotoh Art Museum, Tokyo 1977, p. 8, cat.no.8.

 

The Lanting gathering took place in the ninth year of the Yonghe reign of the Eastern Jin dynasty (353). Forty-two scholars were invited to the Orchid Pavillion near Shanyin, Zhejiang province, for the Spring Purification Festival to play a scholarly drinking game. Hua Mao is supposed to have composed the inscribed poem at the gathering.

Another very similar inkstone, decorated with the same motifs, but without inscription, was also included in the Gotoh Art Museum exhibition together with the present one, op.cit., cat.no.6.