WOODBLOCK LIFE

Look at Chinese life from the 16th to 19th centuries through depictions of elegant gardens in a new exhibition of 48 rare woodblock prints at the Huntington Library.

The exhibition includes gardens real and fictional, including the popular Lion Grove Garden in Suzhou, China. Another work, a scroll measuring more than 25 feet long (six feet of which will be displayed), shows urban gardens in 18th century Beijing.

In the education gallery, visitors can observe Chinese woodblock printing techniques courtesy of a replica of a printing table, along with carving tools, colored inks, paper, brushes and burnishers.

To better illustrate the multicolor printing process, a set of woodblocks and step-by-step prints replicating a page of the “Ten Bamboo Studio Manual” will be on view, a display commissioned from the Shanghai publisher Duo Yun Xuan especially for the exhibition. What: “Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints” When: Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, noon to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through Jan. 9, 2017. Where: MaryLou and George Boone Gallery, Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. Info: (626) 405-2100, www.huntington.org

Collection of Richard Strassberg D E TA I L of “Illustrations of the Garden Scenery of the Hall of Encircling Jade” (Ming dynasty).

Wan-go Weng Hsing Ching Weng Trust / Ssu Weng A PLAYING CARD in the Huntington Library exhibition depicts Du Fu. The card dates to 1653.

Greg Heins Museum of Fine Arts, Boston “POMEGRANATE AND MAGNOLIA WITH BIRD” was created by artist Ding Liangxian during the Qing dynasty.

New York Public Library “STORY OF THE PEONY PAVILION and the Return of the Soul” illustration (Ming dynasty).

President and Fellows of Harvard LANDSCAPE from “Imperial Commentary on the Buddhist Canon” (Northern Song dynasty).