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Lot Essay
While expansive palace garden scenes are often found on Coromandel screens of the 17th and 18th centuries, this screen is distinguished by the unusual scenes of rice planting and sericulture appearing on the reverse. These scenes are probably based on the Yuzhi gengzhi tu (By Imperial Command: Pictures of Plowing and Weaving), a set of woodblock prints produced by Jiao Bingzhen around 1696 to accompany a series of poems by the Kangxi Emperor. This set of prints is also known as the Peiwen gengzhi tu, after the Peiwen Library from which the work originated. The set comprises forty-six prints, of which twenty-three depict the cultivation of rice and the other twenty-three show the production of silk. Two bound volumes of this set were sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 29 April 2002, lot 720 and 27 October 2003, lot 694.
This set of prints may have been inspired by the depictions of farming produced by Lou Chou in 1145, possibly in an effort to teach princes and officials the necessity of farming. These depictions were reproduced as woodblock prints in 1237.
Designs inspired by the Yuzhi gengzhi tu are more often found on porcelains and paintings of the Kangxi period. See D. T. James, 'Narrative Themes on Kangxi Porcelains in the Taft Museum", Orientations, August 1993, pp. 31-6. Similar industrial and agricultural scenes of silk, cotton, porcelain, tea and rice production were also popular themes on Chinese export porcelain and paintings in the 18th century. See K. I. Choi Jr., 'Tea and Design in Chinese Export Painting', The Magazine Antiques, October 1980, pp. 510-9.
This set of prints may have been inspired by the depictions of farming produced by Lou Chou in 1145, possibly in an effort to teach princes and officials the necessity of farming. These depictions were reproduced as woodblock prints in 1237.
Designs inspired by the Yuzhi gengzhi tu are more often found on porcelains and paintings of the Kangxi period. See D. T. James, 'Narrative Themes on Kangxi Porcelains in the Taft Museum", Orientations, August 1993, pp. 31-6. Similar industrial and agricultural scenes of silk, cotton, porcelain, tea and rice production were also popular themes on Chinese export porcelain and paintings in the 18th century. See K. I. Choi Jr., 'Tea and Design in Chinese Export Painting', The Magazine Antiques, October 1980, pp. 510-9.