The Stone Table Garden

The artist who painted this scroll was Sun Kehong, a very wealthy and generous resident of the city of Huating, in what is now Shanghai. The scroll was painted for Lu Yashan, another famous Huating resident, and depicts Lu's garden, which was called the "Stone Table Garden" after a large stone table placed within one of its bamboo groves. This section of the scroll shows Lu watching a young boy watering potted plants. The Stone Table Garden is an ambitious work that took considerable time, so it is likely that Lu produced it for an important occasion. The presence of a crane, traditionally a symbol of immortality, may indicate that this was a birthday gift. Since the painting was created by one member of the elite (whose social status indicates that he would have been an amateur artist) as a gift to another, it is doubtful that the artist was paid.