Rare Twelve-Fold Coromandel Screen
Chinese, 17th Century
Rare twelve-fold coromandel lacquer screen, unusually and fully decorated on each side, one side with regularly disposed groups of scholars and attendants in garden landscapes, the other with the Queen of the West, Xi Wangmu, riding a phoenix, and Panka, the God of the East, the two partial mountain tops with two groups of Immortals on verandas gesturing to Shoulao, God of Longevity, on his crane, flying in the centre, the borders decorated with precious objects, including bi disks, incense burners, finger citrons, bells, ewers, jade plaques, sculptured rocks and, most unusually, an armillary sphere, of European inspiration. Chinese, 17th Century.
Height 9' (2,74m).
Width of each leaf 19¼" (49cm).
For other screens of this kind, with borders of precious objects, see Margaret Jourdain and R. Soane Jenyns, Chinese Export Art in the Eighteenth Century, 1967, pp. 80-81, particularly no. 16. A related Coromandel 12-fold screen in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, also features the figure of Xi Wangmu, and another lacquer screen, recently on the market, had Shoulao as its central figure (Christie’s London, Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 10th May 2011, lot 202, £397,250). The armillary sphere, seen in the border of this present screen, was the symbol of King Manuel I of Portugal (1469-1521), and still features on the flag of Portugal.