This screen is an outstanding example of the use of stained glass in a secular context. Although domestic stained glass enjoyed much popularity in the last quarter of the 19th century, it was most often placed as a permanent architectural feature and such a fine, free-standing example is extremely rare. Moreover, not only does the vigour and naturalism of the overall scheme immediately elevate it above the more prosaic designs for domestic glass at that time, but the variety and complexity of the techniques employed are far beyond the average. The designer has acknowledged that, as a free standing piece, it will be viewed at a far closer range that the more usual architecturally placed ecclesiastical or secular glass, thus demanding much greater precision in the detailing and colouring. Silver stain has been used to produce the rich yellow hues on the birds wings and stick work (where the detail is achieved by scraping through a pigment wash with a blunt tool), has been employed to great effect in the background. Together with exquisite painting and imaginative but restrained placing of richly coloured glass, this combination of techniques produces a final result which is both vibrant and highly accomplished.

It is quite possible that more that one artist was responsible for creating the different elements of the screen - namely the stained glass, the painted glass tiles and the lower stencilled panels. In his book Ornamental Interiors, 1887, Moyr Smith illustrates several examples of smaller panels incorporating similar naturalistic themes and the same book illustrates a Japanese screen which is directly comparable in subject matter to the present screen and which may well have been one of its sources of inspiration.

Moyr Smith was trained in Christopher Dresser's studio between 1867 and 1871 and it is known that their mutual influence was profound. Whilst Dresser is not suggested as the artist of the stained glass itself, the similarity of the stencilled panels on the reverse to some of Dresser's designs for wallpaper, especially those for Lightbown, Apsinall & Co., cannot be dismissed. (Cf. Widar Halén. Christopher Dresser, 1900, pl.79, p.87). Comparison may also be drawn to details of the stained glass windows at Bushloe House, Leicester, which although now thought to have been manufactured by Cox & Co., nevertheless form part of an interior scheme conceived by Dresser, (Cf. Ibid, pl.198, p.176). Dresser's interest in the decorative qualities of all types of glass, including stained and painted glass, is well documented, and his friendship with Louis Comfort Tiffany, begun after their meeting at the Philadelphia Exhibtion of 1876, did much to direct the latter towards not only an interest in the Japanese taste, but also to the virtues of stained glass as a decorative medium.