Table Screen

The table screen is among a very rare group of cloisonné enamel landscapes from the imperial Ming workshop. The pictorial representation of landscape in the archaic blue-and-green style was a cherished means of evoking a golden age. Here, the cloisonné artist deftly organized the copper wire cloisons to suggest the lively brushwork usually found in paintings. The water was meticulously executed with continuous wavy lines filled with translucent green enamel punctuated with passages of white to represent frothy waves. The three figures, simply executed with just a few wires, are nonetheless vividly animated. This elegant treatment representing traditional brushwork demonstrates how successfully the artist applied Chinese taste and design to this foreign technique, which had been imported from the West about one century earlier.