Scott No: 1919-1922
Serial number: T96
Values in set: 4
Date of issue: June 30, 1984
Denomination: 8 fen
Designers: Li Dawei
Size of stamps: 30*40mm
Perforation: 11.5*11
Sheet composition: 50(10*5)
Printing process: Photogravure
Printing House: Beijing Postage Stamp Printing Works

T96 "Suzhou Gardens — Humble Administrator's Garden" special stamps were issued on June 30, 1984. The set consists of 4 stamps, printed by photogravure combined with engraving, designed by Sun Chuanzhe, and printed by the Beijing Stamp Factory.

Theme of the Set

The Humble Administrator's Garden is a representative of Suzhou classical gardens and a model work of Jiangnan gardens. Its layout is spacious and open, with mountains and water complementing each other, and its techniques of borrowed scenery and contrasting scenery are exquisite. This set selects four classic scenes in the garden, presenting the garden-making art of the Humble Administrator's Garden, where every step reveals a new view and which is restrained and elegant, highlighting the aesthetic thought of Chinese classical gardens—"though made by man, it appears as if opened by heaven"—and carrying forward Jiangnan garden culture.

Stamp Designs and Historical Background

Viewing the Reflection Tower from the Yi Liang Pavilion

The scene is taken from the western part of the garden. The Yi Liang Pavilion stands at a high point, from which two adjacent courtyards can be viewed at the same time. In the distance, the Reflection Tower stands by the water, and the tower is reflected on the water's surface. The pavilion, tower, winding corridor, and pond water set off one another, making it the most poetic landscape of the western garden area.

Scenery of the Loquat Garden

The Loquat Garden is a garden within the Humble Administrator's Garden. Loquats are widely planted in the garden, pavilions and porches are arranged in picturesque disorder, and cloud walls surround it. Small, secluded, and quiet, it forms a world of its own, embodying the ingenuity of garden-making in creating realms through partitioned scenery.

Xiaocanglang Water Courtyard

Xiaocanglang is a water-side pavilion built across the water, connected by winding bridges around it. The water surface is expansive, and the corridors and bridges wind back and forth, creating an ethereal and secluded water-town artistic conception.

Hall of Distant Fragrance and Yiyu Pavilion

The Hall of Distant Fragrance is the main hall of the Humble Administrator's Garden. It is spacious and open, transparent on all four sides, with the Yiyu Pavilion accompanying it on one side, facing a large lotus pond. It is the core main scene of the entire garden.

Artistic Design Features

The set adopts a bird's-eye view composition, using delicate engraved lines to outline pavilions, water corridors, lake rocks, and flowers and trees, with warm and elegant colors. It continues the classic style of Sun Chuanzhe's garden stamps. The four scenes are taken respectively from the western garden, the garden within the garden, the water courtyard, and the main hall, with rich layers, condensing the garden space of changing scenery with every step into the square inch of the stamps. It is a fine work among JT garden-themed stamps.