Straits Chinese Table Top Screen

Straits Chinese Table Top Screen

This four-part table-top screen is exceptionally finely carved in pinewood, the carved panels having been decorated with red lacquer with gilding. The four parts comprise three and four carved and gilded panels each, front and back, and are hinged together.

Most probably, the screen was made in China’s northern Guangdong Province in the late nineteenth century and exported to Southeast Asia’s Chinese communities. The decoration is to Straits Chinese tastes and incorporate scholarly themes with phoenixes and peonies.

The screen is in fine condition, although the panels to one side of one of the parts are now missing. This does however, allow the method of construction to be revealed – the woodcarver impressed the backs of the panels with Chinese characters to denote their appropriate placements in the piece.

Ho, W.M., Straits Chinese Furniture, Times, 1994.