AN INSCRIBED CIRCULAR ‘PORTRAIT OF YUANWEI’ ‘DUAN’ INKSTONE BY SHEN RUJIN, QING DYNASTY, GUANGXU - REPUBLICAN PERIOD

the grey-green stone inscribed along the edge in lishu reading Yuan Weizhi xiansheng xiaoxiang ('a portrait of Mr. Yuanwei') followed by one seal of the artist Shiyou ('friend of the stone'), with a depiction in low relief of the Tang poet Yuan Zhen (779-831) in scholarly attire, the reverse with a gently sloping trough for grinding ink, wood box

Shen Rujin (1858-1917), personal name Gongzhou, sobriquet Shiyou, was a scholar of Changshu, who excelled at poetry. He was a collector of Mingjianbaizhai poems and inkstones. The subject here is Yuan Zhen (779-831) of Luoyang, Henan, a famous Tang poet and close friend of Bai Juyi.