A RARE PAIR OF 'EUROPEAN-SUBJECT' CHINESE EXPORT LACQUER SIX-PANEL SCREENS

19TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE PAIR OF 'EUROPEAN-SUBJECT' CHINESE EXPORT LACQUER SIX-PANEL SCREENS
19th century
Each lacquered overall in red and painted in sepia, black and gilt with an paradisical landscape depicting male and female figures in European wigs and late seventeenth century dress at leisure amongst trees and rocks, hunting, eating and swimming, the foreground with peaceable wild creatures, the borders carved in relief and with a gilded double-headed eagle below a coronet above each panel and narrower bands with floral motifs around, slight age craquelure, edge chips and flakes restored
each 92 in. (234 cm.) high, 102 in. (260 cm.) wide (2)

Sale room notice

Please note that one of these screens has suffered flakes and minor scratches since they were illustrated in the catalogue.

Lot Essay

A pair of six-leaf screens within wood frames carved with the double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, similar to those on the present lot, was reputedly given by the Jesuit Fathers to the Archduke Leopold of Austria, when he was elected Emperor in 1700. One of these screens was later given by the Emperor's son to the first Duke of Marlborough, who took it with him on his campaigns, and from whom it passed to the Spencer family. See M. Jourdain and R. Soame Jenyns, op.cit., 1967, p.21. The pair to it, the property of Viscount Leverhulme, T.D., was sold in these Rooms, 26 June 1986, lot 185.

A single 19th Century screen, identical to one of the pair in the present lot, was sold in these Rooms, 25 June 1987, lot 167.

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