Handmade art · From ancient Chinese bricks
“Not a print. You can feel the paper fibre and the ink weight where he pressed harder.”
Verified buyer · AmsterdamWe lay handmade paper onto the carving and press the image off by hand. What arrives is one real sheet of art on paper — not a printer copy, not a digital file.
For sale now
Each one is a single sheet with the image pressed into it. Click any artwork to see the full piece, its size and what comes with it.
Shipping is worked out by destination — we confirm the real cost with you before sending.
Sets
The same four designs, cut at two sizes. Buy them together and the mounting cost is shared — so a set costs less than the same pieces bought apart.
What makes yours different
When you order, we cut a seal with your name and your artwork's number on it. We press it onto your sheet once, by hand. Then we destroy the seal on camera and send you the video.
That mark can never be made again — so no one can ever produce a second one like yours.
How it's made
Chosen from carvings made on Chinese bricks in the Han Dynasty — horses, fish, phoenix, clouds.
Handmade paper is laid over the carving and lined up by hand, so the whole design lands on the sheet.
Ink is worked into the raised parts of the carving and pressed onto the paper, a section at a time.
The paper comes away slowly. The image, the paper's texture and the hand marks all appear together.
It dries flat, then we look it over closely. Small differences are normal — they come from being made by hand.
The sheet gets its own number, its own record, and a certificate you can check on this website.
What you get
Signed for your piece, with a QR code that opens that artwork's page on this site.
Each artwork has one number, like HBA-20261003-0001. It points to one physical sheet — yours.
Filmed at the bench in one take: pressed once, then destroyed. Sent with your shipping notice.
Rolled or flat-packed so it travels safely, with a note on how to handle and hang it. Tracked worldwide.
Where the designs come from
From around 200 BC, Chinese bricklayers carved horses, birds, fish and clouds into the bricks they used for tombs and gateways. Those carvings survived. We still press from them.
So you are buying a brand-new artwork made this month — pressed from something made two thousand years ago.
Common questions
It's a sheet of handmade paper with the image pressed into it by hand, straight off an old carving. Nothing is printed or copied. In Chinese this technique is called Tà Yin; in English people usually say a rubbing or an impression. Either way: it's one real physical artwork on paper.
You get the exact numbered artwork shown. Ink weight and paper texture vary a little from sheet to sheet — that's what being made by hand looks like. It isn't a fault.
The image and the size are the same idea, the finish is different. $89 is the A3 sheet on its own (29.7 × 42 cm), which you frame yourself. $249 is the same artwork mounted as a traditional scroll — it arrives ready to hang.
Same four designs, same paper, same hand work. What you share is the mounting and the shipping — one roll instead of four, so a set costs noticeably less than the same pieces bought apart. It also reads better on a wall: two sheets at A3 look deliberate, one alone can look like it's missing something.
It depends where you are, so we don't guess at it. We work out the real cost for your address and confirm it with you before we send. See our policies.
Each artwork is a single numbered piece made for one owner, so sales are final. If it arrives damaged, or we got something wrong, we remake it at our cost — see policies.