Lantai Elite Ink

[Lantai Elite Ink]

Lantai Elite Ink is 7.1 cm long, 1.7 cm wide and 0.7 cm thick. Ink rectangle. On the obverse, there are four characters of “Lanshi Elite” in gold regular script. The back is inscribed with four characters of the regular script “Kangxi Yihai” in gold, and the bottom is inscribed with seven characters of the script “Made by Cao Yin, the Weaving Minister” in blue. The solid and delicate texture of the ink and the blue color connotation reflect the texture of the ink products in the early Qing Dynasty and the aesthetic orientation of advocating simplicity but not bustling at that time

Lantai, the earliest name of the State of Chu in the Warring States Period, was built with a palace. In the Han Dynasty, there was a stone room for collecting books in the imperial palace, which served as the central archive of ancient books and records. It was called Lantai, which was under the jurisdiction of the imperial historian and the official in charge of history. From then on, the later generations extended the term “library”, “imperial platform” and “historiographer” in the palace, all of which were called “Lantai”