Four-Panel Black Lacquer Screen with Birds, Blossoms, and Brass Feet

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This four-panel Chinese screen unfolds like a painted poem, where birds drift between flowering boughs and garden vignettes emerge beneath … Read more This four-panel Chinese screen unfolds like a painted poem, where birds drift between flowering boughs and garden vignettes emerge beneath a canopy of black lacquer. On the front, golden pheasants and songbirds perch among delicate plum blossoms and peonies, their feathers rendered in soft tones of ochre, blush, and pale green. Branches twist gracefully across the panels, rising from stylized rocks and punctuated by the intricate needles of a pine. A scalloped vine border in warm gilt encircles the scene like a frame of embroidery.

Beneath the landscape, the base of each panel is adorned with painted still lifes—vases, censers, and scholar’s objects—each one quietly symbolic, inviting reflection. The reverse offers a more meditative composition: slender stalks of bamboo and flowering stems host scattered birds, suggesting the shift of seasons or time of day.

The lacquer has developed a mellow sheen with age, catching the light gently. Brass-capped feet anchor the piece with a subtle glint. Whether used as a folding screen, a backdrop, or a sculptural element in the room, this work lends poetry and presence, bridging Chinese artistic tradition with timeless interior elegance. See less