The Chinese invented silk, gunpowder -- and the pet rock. Actually, they are scholar's rocks and they have been objects of connoisseurship since at least the Sung Dynasty (960-1279). They are still collected today.
Seventy of these rocks are on exhibit through Aug. 18 in a show called "Worlds Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholars' Rocks" at the Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue (70th Street).
In China, they sat on a scholar's table for contemplation. "Like landscape paintings, the rocks represented a microcosm of the universe on which the scholar could meditate within the confines of the studio," said Robert D. Mowry, the curator of Chinese art at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University and curator of the show.
Vishakha N. Desai, the director of the galleries at the Asia Society, said: "The more you look, the more you find in it -- worlds within worlds, animal creatures, miniature abysses."