Screen panel
Category
Furniture
Date
c. 1660 - c. 1670
Materials
Painted and gilded paper, mounted on wooden frames, panels currently individually mounted in ebonised and glazed wooden frames.
Measurements
249 x 85 x 6 cm
Place of origin
Mexico City
Order this imageCollection
Ham House, Surrey
NT 1139576.2
Summary
Single panel from a pair of folding screens, covered with painted, embossed and gilded paper, probably Mexican, perhaps 1660s. Decorated with an embossed and gilded arch at the top, containing a roundel with a vase of flowers painted in colours, with embossed and gilded clouds at the bottom, and with part of a landscape painted in colours in the centre, in a style reminiscent of Japanese painting, with a conical hill with figures on horseback and in a wagon, figures hunting wild pigs, figures fishing in a lake, and a peacock, edged at the top and bottom with a red border decorated with floral and foliage motifs, in a plain ebonised frame, glazed.
Full description
References: Emile de Bruijn, Borrowed Landscapes: China and Japan in the Historic Houses and Gardens of Britain and Ireland, London, Philip Wilson Publishers in association with the National Trust, 2023, pp. 29-32 (fig. 11), and see further references listed there.
Provenance
Probably acquired by the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale in the 1670s-80s, and thence by descent; acquired by HM Government, 1948, and transferred to the Victoria and Albert Museum; transferred to the National Trust, 2002.