Asian Screens and Room Dividers

Is there anything more elegant than a vintage or antique Asian screen? Whether you’re looking for a screen to serve as a room divider or just a piece of decor, Asian screens are always a beautiful addition. Originating in Ancient China, folding room screens were mainly used by royalty. As Chinese screens were typically heavy and ornate, they remained stationary in the palace. Artists would paint elaborate designs of mythology, scenes of palace life, nature, and calligraphy onto each panel, sometimes creating broken-up pieces of art on individual panels or lining them up to be one large painting. As the Japanese began to create their own room dividers, they made them lighter and more portable, to be taken to tea ceremonies and religious events. Japanese screens typically had depictions of everyday life and landscapes painted onto them. Early Asian screens were created from wooden panels and painted on lacquered surfaces. A popular variation of the room divider was the Coromandel screen, specifically referring to an ebony folding screen with panels of black lacquer, often painted gold and decorated with jade and semiprecious stones. Eventually, European travelers developed their own version of Asian screen dividers, using wood, leather, silk, mirrors and decoupage. While these screens serve a very practical purpose, dividing a room into distinct areas for more versatility, they are also simply gorgeous to look at and admire as pieces of art. Add some other pieces of Asian antiques to complement the grandeur of the screen.