A VERY RARE CHINESE COROMANDEL LACQUER TWELVE-PANEL SCREEN

The present screen is carved on the upper left section with a dedicatory birthday inscription to Mr. Li Yintai, that was composed by relatives led by Mr. Guo Mingfeng along with others in the year of Shunzhi yihai nian, corresponding to 1659. According to Huguang tongzhi (The General Records of Hunan and Hubei Provinces) published in 1684, Guo Mingfeng was appointed in the ninth year of Shunzhi (1652), to become the zhifu (magistrate) of Huangzhou prefecture.
The term ‘coromandel’ refers to a type of lacquer first made in seventeenth-century China. The technique combines lacquering, carving and polychrome painting in producing large-scale works with elaborate decoration on wooden surfaces. With its complex production process, this lacquering technique did not gain popularity until the Kangxi period (1662-1722), and it is extremely unusual to find a coromandel lacquer screen made before that period. The only other recorded example made before the Kangxi period, appears to be the Xi Yuan Ya Ji coromandel screen currently in the Zhumadian City Museum in China, which is dated to the eighteenth year of Shunzhi, corresponding to 1661.
The present screen is also rare for its decoration of a hunting scene featuring huntresses on horseback. One other coromandel screen dated to the early Qing dynasty, depicting a hunting scene, but featuring only male hunters, is in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Ming and Qing Furniture in the Palace Museum Vol. 20, Beijing, 2015, no. 136, pp. 518-519.