Stone Carvings in Zhulushanfang

Stone Carvings in Zhulushanfang

The stone carvings in Zhulushanfang are a municipal cultural relic protection unit of Wuxi.

The stone carvings in Zhulushanfang are located in Qiuyutang (Autumn Rain Hall), the second courtyard of Zhulushanfang in Xihui Park, Wuxi.

In the 28th year of the Hongwu reign during the Ming Dynasty, the eminent monk Puzhen (Xinghai) of Huishan Temple invited a bamboo craftsman from Huzhou to make a bamboo stove for brewing tea with water from the Erquan Spring. He also asked Wang Fu to paint an illustration, Wang Da to compose a text, and invited literati to write poems, which were then compiled into a handscroll. During the Longqing era, the bamboo stove and the illustrated scroll were moved to Mituo Hall in Huishan Temple. In the 23rd year of the Wanli reign (1595), the hall was destroyed by fire. Zou Diguang rebuilt it and renamed it Zhulushanfang. Later, more poems and illustrations were added to the scroll, and by the time of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, it had become a treasured masterpiece across the country. When Emperor Qianlong made his southern tours, he borrowed the scroll several times and composed poems about it. In 1779, the scroll was burned. Emperor Qianlong then personally painted a replacement for the first illustration in the style of Wang Fu, and ordered others to repaint and rewrite all the illustrations and poems. He bestowed the painting “Stream Mountain Fishing Reflection” by Wang Fu, which was kept in the imperial palace, and commanded that all the imperial poems composed during his visits to Huishan be engraved on stelae. A Baohan Pavilion was built on the right side of Zhulushanfang to house them together. The stone tablets carved based on the illustrations from the bamboo stove scroll were embedded in Qiuyutang within Zhulushanfang. In the 10th year of the Xianfeng reign (1860), Huishan Temple was destroyed in war, and both the bamboo stove and the illustrated scroll were lost. The surviving stone carvings from Zhulushanfang, totaling three pieces from the former Baohan Pavilion and thirty-five from the former Qiuyutang, were embedded in Qiuyutang, which was rebuilt in the late Qing Dynasty. Among them, Gan Da’s “Record of the Bamboo Stove,” “Preface to the Clear Chant of the Bamboo Stove,” and poems by Wang Fu, Wang Da, and three other poets are original works from the Ming scroll, while the rest, including Wang Fu’s “Bamboo in Sunny and Rainy Weather,” are Qing Dynasty carvings.

In November 1983, they were designated as a municipal-level cultural relic protection unit by the Wuxi Municipal People's Government.