Ink Stick from an Imperially Commissioned Set of Ink Stick with Images and Poems of Famous West Lake Sites (1780–94): Art, History and Details

Ink Stick from an Imperially Commissioned Set of Ink Stick with Images and Poems of Famous West Lake Sites (1780–94) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This is one of ten ink cakes of different shapes and colors stored in an exquisite lacquer box. Each is inscribed in gold with a poem by the Qianlong emperor, praising the ten famous sights of the Westlake in Hangzhou, near Shanghai. The Westlake is famous for its natural beauty; it was a favorite imperial destination and remains a tourist attraction today. Ink cakes (also called ink sticks) are dissolved with the addition of water and ground on the surface of a flat stone into liquid ink for painting and calligraphy. The precious ink cakes here, however, have never been used.

Object facts

• Title: Ink Stick from an Imperially Commissioned Set of Ink Stick with Images and Poems of Famous West Lake Sites
• Date: 1780–94
• Culture: China, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong reign (1736–95)
• Type: Miscellaneous
• Technique: Molded ink in yellow
• Dimensions: Overall: 9.6 x 4.8 cm (3 3/4 x 1 7/8 in.)
• Collection: China - Qing Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1942.215.6

Collection credit

Gift of Henry W. Kent

Further reading listed by the museum

• The poems on the ink sticks are published in Yuzhi shiji 御製詩集 [Collection of imperial poetry], vol. 4, juan 71, 6b–8b; and Qinding nanzun shengdian 欽定南巡盛典 [Grand ritual of the southern tour], juan 17, 17b–28b.
• Wang Chi-chien. "Notes on Chinese Ink." Metropolitan Museum Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Dec. 1930), pp. 114–133.
• Hollis, Howard. "A Gift of Chinese Inks." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art Vol. 33, No. 1 (Jan., 1946), pp. 3–5, 11.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.