A LARGE STONE RUBBING WITH CALLIGRAPHYChina, Qing Dynasty (1644-1912). With a fabric coated paper frame and mounted as a hanging scroll with wooden handles. Featuring a poem by Emperor Renzong of Song (1010-1063). The original stone is to be found in the Ciyun Mountain in Hangyhou City, China.Condition: With wear, creases, minor tears, and some losses. The mounting with tears to both ends. Provenance: The Oliver Impey Collection. Oliver Impey (1936-2005) was the President of the Oriental Ceramics Society (1997-2000), a noted curator at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and a leading authority on the arts of Japan. He studied at the University of Oxford, completing his thesis while working in London at Sotheby's, where his connoisseurship and remarkable breadth of knowledge began to develop, as well as his intimate knowledge of the art trade and vigilant eye for a bargain. In 1967, he was appointed Assistant Keeper for Japanese Art at the Ashmolean, and was able, as a Sotheby's colleague put it rather bluntly, to move “straight from the whorehouse to the nunnery”. For nearly four decades, Impey was a tireless acquirer of fine objects, vastly expanding the Museum's holdings. He designed and raised the funds for a new Japanese Decorative Arts gallery to house these treasures and he also befriended several generous benefactors, who made important donations to the Museum. The respect with which he was held in Japan was marked by the award of the Koyama Fujio Memorial Prize in 1997. His personal collection contained works by major masters from Japan, China, and several other Asian countries, of which many were sold by Christie’s in Hong Kong in the late 2000s. Dimensions: Total size 251 x 96.5 cm