LegendThe inkstone that came home
Shen Bingcheng is said to have found, in a shop, an inkstone that had belonged to his own family, and bought it back.
Source: Told to explain the name of the studio
The story
In the early Qing a man named Lu Jin made a small garden here, in the north-east corner of the old city. In 1874 Shen Bingcheng, who had been a high official in Suzhou and was now ill and out of office, bought the ruin with his wife, the poet Yan Yonghua. With the painter Gu Yun they rebuilt it as a house with gardens on both sides.
Ou, the name, is an old word for two people ploughing side by side; it sounds the same as the word for a married pair. The board over the boat gate on the canal says: resting on the waves, a couple in retreat. They lived here together for eight years.
Part of Classical Gardens of Suzhou. Also there: Humble Administrator's Garden, Lingering Garden, Master of the Nets Garden, Canglang Pavilion, Lion Grove Garden, Mountain Villa with Embracing Beauty, Garden of Cultivation, Retreat and Reflection Garden.
What is here
One ticket covers the house and both gardens.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The house | Main ticket |
| East garden | Main ticket |
| West garden | Main ticket |
If you have one minute
By the yellow-stone hill in the east garden
The hill in front of you is not lake rock but yellow stone: square, heavy, brown. It is older than the rest, kept from the first garden, and many think it the finest yellow-stone hill in Suzhou. A gorge runs through it, and a stream to the pond.
Across the pond stands a two-storey hall called the Hall at the Bend of the City Wall. The old city wall really was just behind. Upstairs is the Tower of Double Shining: two people, two reflections in the water.
The garden is symmetrical in an unusual way: the house in the middle, a large garden to the east for the couple, a smaller one to the west with the library. Each half answers the other, as a husband answers a wife in their poems.
Things people often get wrong
"Couple's Retreat is a modern romantic name." It is the owners' own name, from 1874.
"It is a little garden for couples' photographs." It is a scholar's house with one of the best rock hills in the city.
People who stood here
We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English ones.
- Shen Bingcheng (Qing (1644–1912) official and collector, 1823–1895)He had served as intendant in Suzhou. He collected bronzes, inscriptions and books, and bought this garden to retire in with his wife. Later he was called back to serve as governor of Guangxi and of Anhui.
- Yan Yonghua (poet and calligrapher)Shen's second wife, a poet and calligrapher. Many of the couplets in the garden were written by the two of them together.
- Gu Yun (painter, 1835–1896)A Suzhou landscape painter who helped design the garden's buildings and hills.
Go deeper: six stops, east garden and west
Enter from Xiaoxinqiao Lane. Go through the house to the east garden, then back through the house to the west garden. One hour.
1. The main hall of the house
The house in the middle is a proper Suzhou residence with a gate hall, a sedan hall and a main hall, one behind another. Look at the carved brick gate between the courtyards.
2. The east garden: the hill, the pond and the Tower of Double Shining
Climb the yellow-stone hill and go down into its gorge. Then look at the pond: it is long and narrow, to make the hill seem high.
3. The Pavilion between Hills and Water and the Listening to Oars Tower
A waterside pavilion at the south end of the pond holds a great carved wooden screen. At the south-east corner, a small tower looks over the canal: from it the couple could hear the oars of the boats going by.
4. The boat gate
Find the gate where boats could come in from the canal. The words above it, resting on the waves, a couple in retreat, are the key to the whole place.
5. The west garden: the Old House of Woven Curtains
The west garden is smaller and quieter, with a library tower and a study set among rocks. The name of the Old House of Woven Curtains recalls a poor scholar who wove curtains to live and read at night.
6. The Studio of the Returned Inkstone
An inkstone that had once belonged to Shen's family came back to him, the story goes, and he named a room for it. Inkstones were treasured by scholars more than gold.
The garden and the same years elsewhere
The couple moved in in 1874, the year of the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris. In summer 2026 the garden stayed open into the evening, and the Tower of Double Shining was lit on the water.