A bicolour hardstone boulder carved with a celestial scene, female immortals, a phoenix and lotus, worked deliberately across the red and grey-blue boundary of the stone so that the colour split itself becomes part of the picture. Carving to the natural colour of a stone is a prized skill in Chinese hardstone work, and it is handled confidently here, the figures dense and well resolved.

It is signed and dated 1979 at the colour boundary, which places it in the early years after the Cultural Revolution, when Chinese studio carving was reasserting itself. The carver's full name has not yet been read, so we leave it open, but the date and the hand are not in doubt.