Ten Views of Lingbi Rock: Ming Masterpiece Sells for Record Sum and Celebrates China’s Timeless Love of Nature

Quick Smiles:

• Six years ago today a 500-year-old Chinese painting set an auction record and reminded the world of nature’s beauty.
• The scroll captures ten loving perspectives of a single beloved stone, showcasing centuries-old respect for the natural world.
• The sale price of $77 million underscored the artwork’s priceless cultural and spiritual value.

Six years ago today, the high-profile sale of a Ming Dynasty artwork brought the world not only into contact with the most remarkable painting of a stone ever made, but also the depth of the Chinese relationship with the natural world.

Called Ten Views of Lingbi Rock, the painting sold for $77 million at auction, the highest price ever paid for a Chinese classical painting at the time.

Created around 1500 by the scholar-artist Wu Bin, the scroll unfolds like a quiet journey through a single beloved stone, each of its ten scenes revealing new textures, shadows, and moods.

Collectors and scholars alike marveled at the meticulous brushwork that seemed to breathe life into the limestone, honoring a centuries-old Chinese tradition of finding wisdom and solace in nature’s simplest forms.

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