A large black Chinese lacquer panel intricately painted with a fantastical riverside scene in a detailed botanical landscape. Mounted in a decorative frame with floral berry motif.

This panel depicts an unusual scene; in amongst in a busy river with travelling sampan boats, a remarkable vessel sails through the centre. This fantastical ship decorated with feathers and scales carries a sacred statue and strange figures with green skin and animal heads.

The extraordinary boat central to this panel appears to have been decorated to resemble the mythical figure of Jingwei. Jingwei was once Princess Nüwa, the youngest daughter of the Flame Emperor. One day, she tragically drowned whilst playing in the Eastern Sea and upon dying, was transformed into the spirit guardian bird Jingwei. Jingwei was determined to prevent others from befalling her fate and so she used her beak to carry twigs and stones to drop into the Eastern Sea in the hopes of one day filling it until the water was no more. Jingwei is perpetually in this cycle and her name became a reference in Chinese culture to stubborn perseverance. The beak of the bird at the head of the boat can be seen carrying a log, a reference to the twigs carried by Jingwei.

Comtesse de Mauléon:

Marie-Magdeleine-Charlotte de Béon de Massés de Cazaux, Mademoiselle de Béon, known as the Comtesse de Mauléon (1757-1818) was a French aristocrat at the court of Louis XVI. Born at the Château de La Serpent, Aude, in Southern France, she married her distant cousin and was presented at Versailles in 1780. As her family rose in favour, she became lady in waiting to Madame Adelaide of France (1732-1800), the favourite child of King Louis XV and remained in her service until the Revolution. The Comtesse was notably painted by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842), the official artist of Marie Antoinette. The Comtesse escaped the bloodshed of the collapse of the Ancien Régime by fleeing to England and later returned to France after the fall of Napoleon. On the death of the Comte de Béon in exile, she remarried and became Comtesse de Hautpoul in 1808.

During the Comtesse’s time at court in the late 18th Century, the clarity of Chinese design became very fashionable after the extravagance of the Rococo, and lacquer work such as these panels were particularly admired.