Lot Essay
Lu Kuisheng (? – 1850) was a native of Yangzhou and hailed from a family known for making lacquer wares. Lu Kuisheng himself was particularly famous for making the current type of lacquered wood ink stones, which are distinguished by their lightness and resistance to wear, and by the elegantly decorated fitted boxes, or stands with covers. The Shanghai Museum has a collection of similar ink stones by Lu Kuisheng, including a round ink stone accompanied by a stand bearing an almost identical mark to the current example, see Literati’s Farmland: Selected Ink-stones in the Collection of Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2015, p. 275, no. 6-95.