EG 104 · Scholar's Objects

Set of Four Carved Seals in a Lacquer Box

Scholar's seals

Four pale stone seals, each with a coiled dragon on top and an inscription down the sides, with the black lacquered box they live in. The impressions are shown above.

Seals are the most personal of scholar's objects: the owner's name pressed in red at the end of a letter or a painting. These four are a set, carved in the same pale, slightly translucent stone, each surmounted by a chi-dragon and each inscribed on its sides. The box is black lacquer with a text incised across the lid.

Together they make a still life for a desk or a shelf. Open the box and stand the seals in front of it; the red of the impressions in the photograph is what they leave on paper.

Offered as decorative scholar's objects. We describe the stone as pale hardstone and do not certify its type; we have not translated the inscriptions, and we make no claim about the age of the set.