In Chinese, Japanese and Korean painting, the personal chop or seal establishes the artist’s identity and is used to authenticate the painting. This authentication seal is the artist’s signature, which when also written serves only as a secondary identification. The artist also may use mood or side seals to convey transcendent themes. In ancient China it was customary for each successive owner of a painting to add his own personal seal to that of the artist. This custom provides a valuable history of the work and accounts for the proliferation of seals found on old master paintings. In those dynastic days, only persons of great privilege, wealth, and position could own or sponsor such works of beauty.

Please check the mood Mood Seal description for stamp size. Various browser characteristics may distort the image size.

If there is a special mood seal you do not see, we will make every effort to obtain it for you.

Seals are either carved in relief so that the characters appear in Red on a White background, or intaglio so that the background appears in Red and the symbols are White. As you will see in my collection, it is important not only to have a variety of shapes but also seals carved in both relief and intaglio. In years past, seals were carved from elegant materials such as jade and ivory; today, most are carved from soapstone. Many have interesting flowers or figures carved on the side or top of them, making the seals themselves aesthetically pleasing. Seals are great fun to collect. If you find an interesting-shaped seal that is uncarved on the top or side, we would be glad to have your own saying carved on the stone. For your name, I recommend a name chop or seal that is carved in relief and about three-quarter-inch square. Your name will be translated phonetically with a Chinese character representing each syllable. The skilled carver will pick the loveliest meaning for your sounds

Helpful Tip: I place a maximum of two mood seals in addition to my personal chop on any painting. Mood seals are used to enhance your painting, so great thought is given to their placement. Before making your imprint, take little pieces of paper with your seal imprints and move them about on your painting until you are pleased with the placement. A triangular seal placement works well, as does lining up the seals to balance the composition. Whatever placement you choose, always keep your seals along the borders of the painting and practice placing the seal straight  and properly aligned onto the paper, not tilted.

Chinese seals, as a distinctive art form include the ancient seals and the literati’s seal carving that developed from very early time. Originating from designed mould stamps, bronze seals appeared in an embryonic form in the period of Shang and Zhou dynasties (ca. 16th-771 BC). They were first used as an official validation of authority power by high-ranking officials and later widely used as a signature by private persons due to the changes in social structures. Since the 16th century, the literati of the Ming dynasty combined the art of painting and writing with the art of seal carving, bringing forward the very ingenious and scholarly flavored styles of literati seal carvings.

Xi:   It is one of the Chinese names for seals, referring to both official and private seals before the Qin dynasty (221 BC), but only to emperors’, empresses’ and princes’ seals after Qin. Other officials’ seals were called Yin then. Empresses’ seals were also called Bao in and after the Tang dynasty (618-907).

Official seal:  In ancient China, official seals, as a kind of certificate, were offered to the officials at the time when they were appointed to the posts. So, their seals vary in size, material and shape with their posts. Different ages have different styles. The Qin and Han seal characters were made by carving or casting; the Sui and Tang characters were carved in low relief; the Song seals have date marks; and the Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing seal characters are mostly carved in Jiudie seal script with multiple and parallel strokes. Furthermore, seal knobs also vary with ages.

Private seal:  In ancient times, private seals were taken as a kind of erupt of a person’s identity. They could have different contents for different functions, such as seals of a person’s name, a studio name, an auspicious phrase, a zodiac animal, an idiom and a collection appraisal mark.

Red legend and white legend:  Seal characters carved in relief are called the red or positive legend as they are in red when being stamped on paper; otherwise they are called the white or negative legend. The seal shown at the bottom corner on the right of this page is a good example with two legends on one seal. The character on the right is the white legend and the one on the left is the red.

Design seal:  Seals carved with a design of figures, creatures, vehicles and architectures belong to a special type of private seals. It was popularly used as auspicious wishes or design mould stamps in the Warring States period and Han and Jin dynasties (475 BC—AD 420).

Horse brand stamp:  Being a special type of ancient Chinese seals, horse brand stamp looks similar to ordinary seals but was only used to brand a horse for identification .

Seal knob:  Most of ancient Chinese seals have a pierced knob in shape of a nose, an arched tile, a trapezoid, a serpent, a turtle, a camel or a horse on the top for handling and stringing. It could also be regarded as rank marks of official seals. Private seal knobs have more varieties.

Seal inscription:  In addition to the seal characters, some seals also have inscriptions on the top and sides. The Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan (581-1368) seal inscriptions usually give the date and content explanation. And the Ming and Qing (1368-1911) ones have more contents as an art component of the seals.

Clay seal:  It is a piece of clay pressed with certain patterns or characters and fixed across an opening of a packet or envelope. During the period from Warring States period to Jin dynasty (475 BC—AD 420), the formal and official writings written on bamboo and wooden strips were tied up by a rope and sealed with a piece of pressed clay across the opening. But this system gradually declined in the Southern and Northern (Eastern Han dynasty 25-220)