Page 28 - BSAM 2015 Q4

Top left and right; The darker stone has yellowish, sharply formed “ owers” of very good quality and how unusual is the cream colored one?
Bottom; Another ne example of a Laibin Stone with a silky patina, a sinuous shape and a beautifully carved base.
e two Chrysanthemum Stones I have shown here are vastly di erent to what you might currently be fa- miliar with. e darker stone has yellowish, sharply formed “ owers” of very good quality but how unusu- al is the cream colored one? I like the way it is so tightly packed with “ owers” on the self-colored matrix.
Judging Viewing Stones in China is a complicated task, especially with large exhibitions, because trying to compare a landscape stone with a color stone or an object stone is so subjective and there is such excellent quality within each group, more so than in any other country. e sheer quantity, quality and variety of stones to assess is what makes the di erence in China.
In this judge’s opinion, I think the only fair way to judge such exhibitions is to have separately judged cat- egories with all stones types that can be judged simi- larly, in the same category. For example, Landscape Stone Award, Object Stone Award and so on. is is not ideal of course, because how do you compare an excellent Water Pool Stone with an excellent Near Mountain Stone for example, but it may be better than the normal current system. I think it is an exercise worth exploring by an international group of special- ists, involving the wider international stone collecting community.
26 | BCI | October/November/December 2015