Large six-leaf screen in painted canvas, panels decorated with a motif inspired by Chinoiserie, as was fashionable in the mid-18th century, reverse decorated with simple trompe l’oeil panels.
In the 18th century, the Rococo style stimulated the spread of Chinese design elements, including dragons, exotic birds, pagodas, and Chinese. After the introduction of Chinese interior decoration in Versailles, this fashion spread to other European countries. Chinese interior design included Chinese-style wallpapers and porcelain. In the meantime, pagodas and tea pavilions appeared in the parks and gardens of Europe. Despite the reaction against Rococo and Chinoiserie caused by neoclassicism, Chinese influence persisted at the end of the century. Chinoiserie as a decorative art is a pure emanation of Western tradition which finds its source in the numerous objects brought back from the Orient since the Middle Ages as well as fanciful descriptions of distant China which is still little known. It is therefore a European invention from the 17th and 18th centuries which does not claim to imitate existing models from China but which offers an extravagant fantasy.
Il s’agit d’un désir d’exotisme oriental qui saisit les Français de l’époque. La séduction de la «chinoiserie» correspond à une lassitude envers les éléments classiques, elle satisfait un besoin de fantaisie anti-conformiste, répond à un goût d’orientalisme mis à la mode par la littérature, le théâtre et le débat philosophique d’alors.
XVIII siècle
France
Chacune des six feuilles : hauteur: 160 cm x largeur: 60 cm
Longueur totale de 360 cm déployé.
