17TH-18TH CENTURY

This rock is a fine representation of the quality of tou, openness or holes, one of the qualities prized in a scholar’s rock. This quality is referred to by Richard Rosenblum in his essay in Robert D. Mowry’s Worlds Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Scholars’ Rocks, Harvard University Art Museums, 1996, pp. 117-18, where he writes in reference to Taihu rocks, “the holes within holes of these rocks give the experience of infinity”, “varying in size and orientation, these holes create the sensation of an ever-changing and infinite world within a finite object.”
The well-weathered surface of this rock is consistent with it having been in a garden for several hundred years, and the weathering has helped to bring out the texture and veining in the stone.