Gui Fu

This seal by Gui Fu 桂馥  (1736–1805) is extraordinary in how modern it looks—almost like abstract art.

It contains three practically illegible characters 在虎竹 read from right to left. The meaning is something like “to live like a tiger among bamboo” or perhaps “to be like a bamboo tiger”—my Chinese is not good enough to be sure which is more correct. Let me know if you know the meaning.

The original stone is in the Shanghai Museum but, interestingly, they illustrate the stone with it’s carved top but don’t illustrate the seal inscription on their website.

Here are a few more seals by Gui Fu which are much more generic. Like most other seal artists, he worked in a variety of styles.

I’ve been unable so far to find more information about the artist.

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