Can you read Chinese characters? Help with inkstone and label

Factual Questions
1

If you can read Chinese, Chinese cursive or shorthand, I would appreciate you having a look at this Duan inkstone and old label: https://imgur.com/gallery/w1qz3u1

I would love to know what’s written on both.

Thanks.

2

I don’t know Chinese; I’ll try to help. I read the third image as maybe “三希堂”. (The first character is three.) Google says that is sān xī táng. Searching for the phrase leads me to Hall of Three Rarities.

The fourth image looks like signature blocks, as in how the artist marked their work to indicate they created it. Often a poetic nom d’artiste.

Good luck.

3

Thanks, Pleonast, for those helpful links. Especially the link to the Hall of Three Rarities exhibit. After reading that, do you think the cursive characters on the back were etched in reverse, so the stone could be inked and then rubbed on paper? That might be why it’s difficult to read. It could be the stone was designed to look like one of the stones that were used to record the calligraphy/poetry in the Hall of Three Rarities. That’s a good start for me in determining what the characters say and whose poem it is.

Also, I think that’s a Longma on the inkwell side of the stone.

It’s been interesting learning more about this stone. Collecting is a good way to learn about other cultures.

4

According to wife:

  • First image: not standard writing, hard to read, hard to recognize.

  • Second image: san xi tang, is the name of Qian Long’s office (like 30 Rock or 1 Infinite Loop).

  • Third image: The chops says “Made by Qian Long,” but probably doesn’t literally mean that the emperor himself made it.

5

Yeah, I can’t figure out the first writing at all. I did a left-right flip and it looks less interpretable, if that makes any sense.