Page 116 - Christie's, Important Chinese Works of Art December 2, 2015 HK

From The Hands of Many Imperial Craftsmen:
A Folding Imperial Screen

Rosemary Scott
International Academic Director Asian Art

This magnificent screen displays the remarkable talents of some AD 1713.4 The sixty shou at each end of the current screen also
of the most accomplished artists in a variety of imperial ateliers. suggests the celebration of an imperial birthday, possibly that of
These artists included the finest lacquer painters, kesi weavers, the Kangxi Emperor’s sixtieth birthday in 1713, or perhaps that
embroiderers, painters on silk, painters on paper, wood carvers of his son the Yongzheng Emperor.
and gilders. One can imagine each group of artists working in
their own studios and then bringing all their efforts together Imposing imperial five-clawed dragons have been painted both
to create a glorious screen. It appears that no other imperial by artists working in ink and colours on paper and those painting
screen decorated with this wealth of materials and techniques has in gold lacquer on a dark lacquered ground. In the case of
been published. Its design combines a rich slightly European- the dragons painted on paper, each panel contains five dragons
influenced style with intricate traditional Chinese elements to amongst clouds above rocks rising out of turbulent waves.
create an opulent and impressive item of imperial furniture, Dragon are often depicted amongst clouds as it is said in the
reflecting court taste of the high Qing. Book of Changes 㖻䴻: ‘Clouds come from dragons, while wind
comes from tigers’ 暚⽆漵ĭġ桐⽆嗶; the idea being that the breath
Such a screen, which required the cooperation of craftsmen from of the dragons turns into clouds. The rock beneath the dragons,
such diverse workshops, would have been a specific imperial emerging from the waves, which is also seen on Qing dynasty
commission, probably to commemorate a special occasion. A imperial robes, provides a rebus for ‘may the kingdom be unified’
comparison may be made with the pair of massive screens, - shanhe yitong Ⱉ㱛ᶨ䴙 or jiangshan yitong 㰇Ⱉᶨ䴙. The waves
preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, which was made for symbolise a river - either he 㱛 or jiang 㰇 in Chinese - while
the celebration of the sixtieth birthday of the Kangxi Emperor the rock stands for a mountain - shan Ⱉ. They combine to give
(see fig. 1).1 Each panel of this latter screen has a zitan frame, either jiangshan or shanhe, both of which refer to the lands of a
embellished with mother-of-pearl and polychrome lacquer, inset kingdom. Thus the imperial dragon surveys his unified country.
with panels of calligraphy executed by the imperial princes. It
is also interesting to compare a huali nine-fold screen, also in
the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, which is inset
with kesi panels depicting flowers and rocks in a similar style to
those on the current screen. This Beijing palace screen, which
has been dated to the Yongzheng-Qianlong period, is illustrated
in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 54 -
Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (II), Hong Kong, 2002, p.
220, no. 189. Painted polychrome lacquer designs and intricately
carved details, of similar quality to those seen on the current
screen, appear on an superb imperial throne, which was sent to
the home of Prince Ji in order that the Qianlong Emperor could
be seated upon it during his visit to the prince.2

At either end of the current screen on the reverse side is an
ornately framed panel containing sixty shou ⢥ longevity
characters delicately embroidered with great precision in
silk thread. Each of the characters is different and many are
depicted in distinctive archaistic seal script. Interestingly, similar
archaistic seal script characters can be seen on a large blue and
white porcelain vase from the Kangxi reign decorated with ten
thousand versions of the shou character in the collection of the
Palace Museum, Beijing.3 In the case of both the screen and the
porcelain vase the reference is to the traditional imperial birthday
greeting: wan shou wu jiang 叔⢥䃉䔮, ‘ten thousand years of long
life without end’, which appears in similar archaistic characters
within the border of the famous ‘birthday’ plates, believed to have
been made for the sixtieth birthday of the Kangxi Emperor in

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