A very rare and large Dali marble-inset 'jichimu' and ‘tielimu’ floor screen (Zuoping), Late Ming / early Qing dynasty, 17th century

Acquired in New York, 2000.

Towering at almost seven feet tall, the present screen is one of the largest and finest examples of its type ever to come to market. Composed of seventeen ornate openwork panels of stylized shou (‘longevity’) characters and swirling chi dragons, the screen mirrors these auspicious motifs in its robust grand stand and magnificent side panels and stands as testament to the extraordinary skill of its creators. 

The present screen is also remarkable for its large and evocative marble panel. The use of inlaid marble in screens and tables became popular amongst scholars in the Ming dynasty for its ability in conjuring up imaginary scenes and landscapes, with the most desirable of these ‘dreamstones’ quarried from the hills of Dali, Yunnan province. The famous connoisseur and tastemaker Wen Zhenheng (1585-1645) was a notable proponent of Dali panel work, describing its beauty in his Treatise on Superfluous Things (Zhangwu zhi). As Wen notes, the most desirable Dali stones are those as “white as jade” with characteristic veining as “black as ink”. In their simple yet moving beauty, the ‘landscapes’ of the best Dali marble are thus said to resemble the misty ink landscapes, and particularly those of Song dynasty master Mi Fu (1051–1107) and his family and, at their best, may even surpass their inky counterparts in their evocative beauty. As Wen notes of screens like the present: 'The screen is the most ancient of furnishings. Those inlaid with Dali stone and set into a base are the finest and most valuable, especially when the workmanship is delicate.' Depictions of these large-scale floor screens are found in many Ming-dynasty paintings of gentleman-scholars, including Du Jin's (ca. 1465-1509) Enjoying Antiquities, in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, illustrated by Craig Clunas in 'Lost Interiors: Woodblock Prints and the Evidence for Chinese Furniture', Chinese Furniture: Selected articles from Orientations 1984-1994, Hong Kong, 1996, p. 67, fig. 4.

Surviving floor screens of this monumental size and quality are exceptionally rare with only one other known example of this type apparently ever published, now preserved in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis (accession no. 96.120.7a-d), illustrated in Robert D. Jacobsen and Nicholas Grindley, Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1999, cat. no. 53 (Fig. 1). This example, almost identical in design to the present, blends huanghuali and tielimu elements with a marble panel and was previously sold at Christie’s New York, 19th September 1996 for $1,102,500, then the highest price realized at auction for any piece of Chinese furniture. Two further large screens from this period are attested with removable central panels: one preserved in the Palace Museum with a removable painting on glass of a court lady, illustrated in Hu Desheng, ed., The Palace Museum Collection. A Treasury of Ming & Qing Dynasty Palace Furniture, vol. I, Beijing, 2007, fig. 383; and the other with a double-sided painting on wood, sold from a distinguished American private collection at Christie’s New York, 21st March 2025, lot 801 for $2.2 million.

Also compare two further huanghuali standing screens of slightly smaller dimensions with comparable features to the present: a floor screen from a private European collection now lacking its removable central plaque and decorated with slightly more rudimentary chilong openwork, sold at Christie’s New York, 23rd March 2012, lot 1759; another included in Nancy Berliner, Beyond the Screen. Chinese Furniture of the 16th and 17th Centuries, Museum of Replica Handbags s, Boston, 1996, cat. no. 1; and another, with more geometric chilong openwork framing a large panel of Dali serpentine, sold at Christie’s New York, 25th March 2022, lot 1013.

While exceptionally rare today, full-sized floor screens like the present were a common feature of scholarly and imperial homes during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Alongside practical functions as a room divider and draft excluder, the floor screen also played a significant symbolic role as a marker of its owner’s status and stood as an art object in its own right as an object worthy of admiration.