Where all the Four Beauties are Present 1871 - 1933

This ink rest, "Where all the Four Beauties are Present," was carved by Jian Guzhai. Looking closely, you can see the dragon motif. Dragons in Chinese culture represented imperial power and were frequently used in court art to establish cultural legitimacy. This ink rest is interesting because it takes the imagery of court culture, used to denote social status, and incorporates it into an everyday object for use by a literati, revealing an important tension in Qing Dynasty China between the scholarly class and the court. Historians of Chinese art would study such an object by looking at how the imagery of imperial power was appropriated by other social groups, and the degree to which that imagery was transformed by its new social context. They might consult court records, the writings of scholars, and accounts from the marketplace to understand the status of this object in its original culture.