A small rectangular lacquered and gilded plaque, or leaf, depicting on one side (obverse) a European figure carrying a long box followed by his dog and on the other (reverse) a still-life composition with two vessels probably set on a table.
During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) the word pingfeng was used for “screen”, a fix screen with base (or zuopingfeng), some consisting of a variant number of leaves (three to five), known as weiping. Of the first ones, in some examples it is possible to remove the leaf from the base (chapingshi zuopingfeng), while in others this is not possible, being a single piece (zuopingfeng).
Miniature versions, such as the present table screen, are depicted in Song Dynasty (960-1279) painting, and used in the Ming dynasty, next to the bed as “pillow screens” (zhenping), or over the scholar’s desk, known as yanping or "inkstone screen," used not only at the table of the intellectual elite, but also set over long tables, alongside ancient bronzes, carved jades or natural rock formations (known as gonshi), while serving a merely decorative function.[1]
Examples of table screens set with stone plaques, usually a type of marble whose colour variations would induce Chinese officials and scholars in the contemplation of nature, are known as xiaozuopingfeng.
The present plaque, given its dimensions, proportions and iconography, would serve as a loose sliding leaf of table screen, of which we are missing the base, probably carved and lacquered. Worn out on both sides, with loss of some iconographic details on the reverse, wear and tear which is consistent not only with its antiquity but with the intense use to which it was certainly subjected to, the wood plaque is coated with dark or black lacquer and decorated in high relief gold over red and brown lacquer motifs, the obverse also decorated with a border in gilded lacquer and mother-of-pearl inlays, probably from the shell of the marine gastropod abalone or Haliotis spp., given its colour and iridescence.
On this side we may see a male European figure - probably a Portuguese merchant, perhaps even a New-Christian of Sephardic origin - with a broad-brimmed hat, wearing doublet, gown (roupeta), hoses and stockings, who walks towards the right holding in his hands a long rectangular box, probably containing a precious roll of Chinese silk, while being followed by his dog, depicted as a Buddhist lion.
The reverse is decorated with a composition that is both decorative and symbolic - probably auspicious, although, given the wear and tear of the plaque, it is difficult to interpret - where two vessels, raised on tall display bases, may be seen, following the shapes of Chinese archaic bronzes: a rectangular ding raised on four feet, a vessel for preparing meat dishes and one of the most important shapes in this repertoire of ritual vases, and a gu (here used to hold and display flowers), a trumpet-shaped vessel featuring a thin body divided by a central bulge and topped with an exaggerated flare, and one of the most characteristic wine vases of the archaic period. Next to, and above the ding, we see the silhouette of a sceptre or ruyi, with its characteristic head in the form of lingzhi, or mushroom of immortality (Ganoderna lucidum).
Used both as implement and table decoration of an educated Chinese scholar who, in the late Ming dynasty (1368-1644) preferred the use of flat precious hardwoods and complex, perfect joinery methods revealing the mastery of the cabinetmakers[2] -, it is clear that, given its iconography, the production of this rare and important piece of lacquered furniture, a unicum of great historiographical value, as a document, it follows the taste of the European clientele for which it was made, and a production probably centred on the coastal regions of Guangdong province.


Hugo Miguel Crespo


Bibliography:

Nancy Berliner, Beyond the Screen. Chinese Furniture of the 16th and 17th Centuries (cat.), Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1996.
Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture. Ming and early Qing Dynasties, 2 Vols., Hong Kong, Art Media Resources, 1990.

[1] On ths type, see Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture. Ming and early Qing Dynasties, Vol. 1, Hong Kong, Art Media Resources, 1990, pp. 89-92.
[2] On Chinese furniture of the period and the taste of the elite, see Nancy Berliner, Beyond the Screen. Chinese Furniture of the 16th and 17th Centuries (cat.), Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1996.