Shanghai Stationary Summerplace at Night — 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: A muted olive-khaki brown with real tonal range — thin lines and light washes sit yellow-green to khaki, while anywhere the ink pools it drops to a deep purple-brown, close to aubergine at full concentration. Retailer copy describes it as a warm golden-brown; on Tomoe River my swatches read distinctly cooler and greener than that, closer to olive than to gold, with the warmth only really appearing in the mid-tones.

Shading: Strong. The swab bar and drops run the full distance from pale olive to dark plum-brown with clear steps between. There is also pronounced chromatic separation — the yellow-green and the dark purple-brown split visibly at the edges of a wet stroke.

Sheen: None visible in my swatches. The reddish cast in the darkest pooled areas is concentration and shimmer, not sheen.

Shimmer: Yes. A duochrome particle described as mauvy-pink to bronze depending on light, and fine rather than heavy. It settles into the darker pooled areas and is subtle in ordinary writing, showing best in wet strokes, broad nibs and washes. Shake the vial before filling.

Flow: Medium.

The interesting bit: Shanghai Stationary is a small family-run maker in the Netherlands, run by Astrid and Emile, whose motto is that they met in Shanghai but make in the Netherlands. The missing "e" in Stationary is deliberate — a joke the brand has kept. Their colours are named for places and moments rather than for pigments, and this one takes the imperial garden complex in Beijing after dark: not the gold-roofed daylight version, but the lake and the willows under a low light, which is a fair description of what the ink actually does on paper.

This is a hand-decanted 4ml sample vial from my own bottle.
Photos are my own swatches on Tomoe River Paper.
I'm a collector and I'm always happy to talk ink, so please message me if you have any questions.