Screen in Coromandel lacquer. Late 18th century

Beautiful four-leaf folding screen in Coromandel lacquer from the end of the 18th century.

The type of lacquerware known as "Coromandel" was created in China in the middle of the 17th century. Their name, that of the eastern coast of India, was given by the English because it was in the ports of this coast that these lacquers, exported from China to Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were transhipped from Chinese junks to the ships of the India companies. They are cabinets and especially large screens of twelve sheets up to 3 meters high and 60 centimeters wide for each sheet. Originally, they were gifts offered in China to high dignitaries. From the Kangxi reign onwards, they became export items and were very popular in Europe. Many of them were dismembered on arrival and cut into panels to decorate chests of drawers.