Signs for picture-mounting shops

Picture-mounting shops usually used word signs. This illustration was modeled after the sign for Run Gu Zhai, a picture-mounting shop in old Beijing. On the upper part are three regular characters. "Run Gu Zhai": while on the bottom is a picture scroll, with the words "paintings and calligraphic works of famous artists from past Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties to the present. Suzhou-style mounting" written to its left as catch-phrases. Traditional Chinese picture mounting boasted excellent craftsmanship and refined materials. Since artisans from Suzhou created the most delicate work, the shop made it a point to include on the sign the words "Suzhou-style mounting."

Interior scene of a picture-mounting shop

In China the paper and thin silk for brush writing and painting are so fragile that when the artwork is finished, its edges and back need be mounted with paper and damask silk to make it thick enough to be hung in halls. On account of this, for thousands of years China's picture-mounting trade has prospered. The illustration shows a picture-mounting shop in Beijing at the beginning of the 20th century, where masters and their apprentices are mounting calligraphic works and paintings.

Refined Gathering

18th-century painting

There are two ways of mounting works of Chinese painting and calligraphy: vertical or horizontal scrolls. Rollers must be fixed at both the top and the bottom of a vertical scroll, so that the mounted work can be hung on a wall; horizontal scrolls, with rollers fixed on the left and right, are rolled up and put away at ordinary times, but unrolled and set on a desk for appreciation. This work was painted by the 18th-century artist Chen Mei, the figures in it are viewing a vertical scroll.