Scholar's rock

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

Valued for their dramatic forms, textured surfaces, and symbolic significance, scholar’s rocks served as meditative objects on scholars’ desks—miniature landscapes evoking vast mountains, eroded cliffs, or caverns shaped by wind and water. This example, with its jagged peaks and perforated hollows, invites reflection on nature’s rhythms and the scholar’s desire to live in harmony with the world. Such rocks also offered a mental escape, allowing the scholar to envision distant landscapes while remaining at his desk. It transformed the scholar’s studio into a portable retreat—a world within a stone. China, Asia