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A CHINESE COLOURED SOAPSTONE, MOTHER-OF-PEARL, BLACK AND POLYCHROME LACQUER SIX-LEAF SCREEN

EARLY 18TH CENTURY

Details

A CHINESE COLOURED SOAPSTONE, MOTHER-OF-PEARL, BLACK AND POLYCHROME LACQUER SIX-LEAF SCREEN
EARLY 18TH CENTURY
The central four panels depicting hunting scenes in a mountainous landscape in a foliate scroll border surmounted by smaller Chinese landscape scenes with Chinese animals along the lower edge, the reverse decorated with birds, bamboo and prunus, minor losses to the lacquer and ivory, originally a twelve-leaf screen
Each panel 97½ x 20 in. (247.5 x 51 cm.)

Provenance

Possibly acquired by Thomas Parker (1667-1732), 1st Earl of Macclesfield, Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire and by descent at Shirburn.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

A related hunting scene and leaf cartouches feature on a coromandel lacquer screen of the Kangxi period (1660-1722) thought to have been shipped to England in 1682 by Elihu Yale, Governor of Fort St.George, India (M. Jourdain and R. Soame Jenyns, Chinese Export Art, London, 1951, fig. 13; and O. Garnett, Erddig, London, 1999, pp. 71 and 72). One of the finest examples of a soapstone-inlaid twelve-panel screen was sold anonymously, Christie's Hong Kong, 28 April 2003, lot 592. Another soapstone-inlaid lacquer screen was sold by E. R. Hanbury, Esq., removed from Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland, in these Rooms, 6 July 1989, lot 146 (£7,700). The screen also depicted mounted warriors hunting tigers, deer, rabbits and various animals. Parallels with Shirburn are evident: Burley-on-the-Hill was begun in 1696 by the 2nd Earl of Nottingham, Secretary of State for War between 1688-1693. He succeeded to the senior Earldom of Winchelsea in 1729.

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