Expert: John J - 6/14/2010

Question
Hello- thanking you in advance for any translation help you can provide from the image below.
http://imgur.com/eFJH8.jpg

Answer
Hi Matthew,

Sorry I didn't reply you earlier but I didn't get noticed until today. Anyway, the four characters read (in Pinyin) "Tian1 Dao4 Chou2 Qin2", literally meaning "Heaven" "Rule"(or "way" or "Tao") "Reward" "Diligence". So you now probably have a picture of what it says, which is "diligence is rewarded by natural law". or simply "diligence pays off". The smaller characters on the bottom are written in a more calligraphic way thus it's difficult for me to read. Basically it says "(It was) written in a certain year's winter".

Hope that answers your question.

Best,
John