The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove were a group of Chinese Taoist Qingtan scholars, writers, and musicians who came together in the bloody 3rd century. It turns out that the group is mostly fictitious; although the individual members all probably have existed, their supposed relationship highly suspect, as is their alleged previous court official career. Careers notwithstanding, key members were linked with the “Taoist” Cao Wei; they found their lives to be in danger when the avowedly “Confucian” Jin Dynasty came to power. They wrote taoist poems, poems criticizing the court and the administration and manuals on Taoist mysticism and alchemy. As is traditionally depicted, the group wished to escape the intrigues, corruption and stifling atmosphere of court life during the politically fraught Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. They gathered in a bamboo grove where they enjoyed, and praised in their works, the simple, rustic life. This was contrasted with the politics of court. The Seven Sages stressed the enjoyment of ale, personal freedom, spontaneity and a celebration of nature. Another person associated with the Seven Sages is Rong Qiqi, who in fact lived quite earlier. This association is depicted in some apocryphal art from the fourth century, in a tomb near Nanjing.
In the April of 1960, these portrait bricks were excavated from an imperial tomb in Nanjing. They were then on the north and south wall inside the bomb, composed by nearly 300 bricks, with every brick 2.4 m long and 0.88 m high. This work is the biggest and the most complete one of the same kind.
Gold gild copper case with inkstone
The inkstone, together with the ink brush, ink (stick) and paper, are the four writing implements traditionally known as the Four Treasures of the Study. An inkstone is literally a stone mortar for the grinding and containment of ink. Traditional Chinese ink was usually solidified into sticks for easier transport and preservation. Even a small amount of water could be applied to the end of a stick of ink, and that end would be ground with the flat surface of the ink stone.
The age of inkstones began in the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220AD), and various kind of inkstones both with practicality and sense of beauty came into blooming. This Gold gild copper case with inkstone is representative of the outstanding technique of craftsman in the Han Dynasty.
This inkstone is excavated in 1970 from a Han tomb in Xuzhou, from which “jade suits sewed with silver thread” and more than 100 other funerary objects were excavated. This case of inkstone is 25 cm long, 14.8 cm wide, 10.2 cm high, and is wholly gold gilded, inlayed with red coral, lapis lazulis and turquoises. Its shape is a kind of fabled animal that looks like a hoptoad with a Chinese dragon head, having a pair of horns on head and wings, which was considered a kind of auspicious animal in ancient China.
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