Yuanmingyuan Grand Fountain Stone Fish

Yuanmingyuan Grand Fountain Stone Fish

       The Grand Fountain Stone Fish is 126cm long, 93cm wide, and 50cm high. It was originally located in front of the Grand Fountain of the Western Mansions in Yuanmingyuan. Frenchman Maurice Adam once photographed the stone fish still in front of the Grand Fountain in the 1920s, and this photo was later included in the book 'Studies on the Yuanmingyuan Project by Jesuit Missionaries in the Eighteenth Century' published in 1936. In the mid-1930s, it was moved from the Grand Fountain of the Western Mansions by Yang Jie (1889—1949), a Lieutenant General of the Kuomintang Army, to his private residence in Xidan Heng'er Tiao. In 2005, it was rediscovered by Liu Yang, an employee of the Yuanmingyuan Administrative Office, in a private residence in Xidan Heng'er Tiao, Beijing. After negotiations with the property owner, this pair of stone fish finally returned to Yuanmingyuan in November 2006.