Four-Panel Black Lacquer Screen with Birds, Bamboo and Flowers — Chinese Work, Circa 1950

Four-panel folding screen in black lacquer, the panels richly decorated with bamboo, exotic birds, peony blossoms and scholar's rocks in polychrome and gilt. Chinese work, circa 1950. Dimensions: 164 × 2.2 × 182 cm (open).

PRODUCT DETAILS

Dimensions en CM 164 x 2.2 x 182 cm
Dimensions en INCH 64.57 x 0.87 x 71.65 inch
Période 1940–1950
Matériaux Lacquered Wood

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

This magnificent four-panel folding screen is a consummate example of the Chinese lacquer tradition as it was practised in the mid-twentieth century for the luxury export market. Each panel is lacquered in a deep, luminous black and decorated with an exuberant profusion of painted motifs: tall, swaying bamboo stalks rendered in pale gold and green rise across the full height of the screen, while among them perch and alight vividly coloured exotic birds — their plumage picked out in crimson, blue, and white with meticulous delicacy. Peony blooms in pink and white punctuate the composition, alongside the rounded grey-green masses of scholar's rocks, creating a scene of contemplative garden beauty that draws equally on the conventions of Chinese court painting and the decorative demands of the Western interior.

The making of lacquerwork for export was already a well-established Chinese industry by the seventeenth century, when European merchants began bringing screens, cabinets, and panels to Western markets hungry for the material luxury and visual novelty of the Far East. The tradition never died out, and in the mid-twentieth century it continued to produce works of genuine quality for an international clientele. The bamboo-and-bird composition is one of the most enduring of all Chinese decorative programmes, laden with symbolic significance: the bamboo evokes resilience and integrity, while birds — cranes, paradise birds, mandarin ducks — carry associations of good fortune, longevity, and conjugal fidelity.

At one hundred and eighty-two centimetres in height and one hundred and sixty-four centimetres wide when fully opened, the screen is of imposing proportions, suited to furnishing large interior spaces or creating an elegant separation within a room. The lacquer retains its depth and lustre, and the painted decoration is well-preserved and vivid. A work of outstanding decorative generosity that brings an immediate note of exotic opulence to any setting.

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