Screen; Japan, c. 1850.

Screen; Japan, c. 1850.
Embroidered silk and painted and gilded canvas.
It has patches on the back and wear on the painted surface.
Measurements: 171 x 369 cm.
This screen of six leaves is a representative example of the refined Japanese taste for the pictorial narrative applied to domestic furniture. Made of embroidered silk and painted canvas with delicate applications of golden pigment, the work displays a court scene set in a landscape of gardens and pavilions connected by red walkways, in a clear allusion to palatial architecture. The figures, dressed in rich kimonos of saturated colors, appear arranged in different spaces, suggesting a narrative sequence that invites the viewer to move through the scene from right to left, following the visual flow characteristic of this type of composition.
The presence of floating clouds and the isometric perspective arrangement, typical of the yamato-e pictorial tradition, give the scene a timeless and poetic quality, where space is not represented realistically, but as a symbolic construction that allows to show simultaneously interior and exterior.
Japanese screens, or byobu, have occupied a central place in Japanese material culture and aesthetics since the Middle Ages, but their role during the 19th and 20th centuries is particularly revealing of the processes of modernization and social transformation that Japan underwent during this period. Originally conceived as movable space dividers, intended to regulate intimacy and modulate the sensory experience of traditional architecture, screens became true supports for artistic expression.
During the 19th century, at the height of the late Edo period, and later in the Meiji era (1868-1912), screens became the preferred canvas for depicting scenes of daily life, seasonal landscapes and literary motifs. With the opening of the country to international trade in the second half of the 19th century, the screens began to circulate in the global market, arousing the interest of European and North American collectors and museums.