Entrepreneur displays his stone carving collection

When a friend told him the collector had a couple of rare stone animals for sale, Wu went to the man’s store in Beijing but didn’t like what he saw.

“The two animals looked weird and grotesque and they weren’t what I was looking for,” Wu said.

But when he was about to leave the store, he suddenly noticed a marble tiger, which was more than 20 centimeters in length.

Holding the tiger in his hands, Wu tried to contain his excitement and asked how much the stone tiger was. After bargaining, he purchased the tiger.

Wu liked the marble tiger so much that he went to an artist with the College of Fine Arts in Qinghua University, and asked him to make a replica stone tiger, which would be several times larger.

After examining the tiger, the artist told Wu that he could not make it because the art of traditional stone carving had been lost and modern-day sculptors in China had no idea about traditional stone carving.

Another of Wu’s favorite piece is the stone jar with lotus and honeysuckle patterns from the Southern Dynasties, which he bought from a Hong Kong antique store last year.

“People may have seen jars made from various materials such as clay, porcelain, bronze, iron or steel, but this is likely to be the first time they see a rare jar made from stone,” Wu said.