Beschreibung:

A FINE AND RARE HARDSTONE EMBELLISHED 'ELEPHANT AND TRIBUTE BEARERS' DOUBLE SIDED TABLE SCREENMid-Qing Dynasty
One side attractively inlaid with shaped plaques of mother-of-pearl, variegated shell, red lacquer and hardstones, the reverse with an inlaid mother-of-pearl fourteen-character poem by Du Fu and three auspicious seals, all on lustrous dark brown lacquer grounds and mounted as a zitan four-legged rectangular table screen.
44.5cm (17 7/8in) high x 38.5cm (15 1/8in) wideFootnotesProvenance: from the collection of Edward Gordon Lowder (1862-1942) and Catherine Lucretia Dunster (1865-1940), thence by descent.
Edward Gordon Lowder, served with the Imperial Maritime Customs, later known as the Chinese Maritime Customs. The archives of his first son Hugh Gordon Lowder are held at SOAS library.
清中期 嵌百寶白象進寶圖硯屏《香稻啄餘鸚鵡粒，碧梧棲老鳳凰枝》《仙蠡》《怡情》《山水怡情》款
This screen is a fine and exceptionally large example of a group of related table screens and boxes from the Qing court collection, currently retained in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing. A closely related box decorated with an elephant bearing a vase but surrounded by just two foreigners was included in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (II), Hong Kong, 2002, no.232 rather than five in the present work.
Elephants have long been a popular theme at the Qing court and the white elephant has strong Buddhist associations. The Buddha's mother, Queen Maya is said to have been visited by a white elephant following years of not being able to bear a child and Buddha is said to have taken the form of a white elephant for his final incarnation.
The presence of the vase (ping 瓶) on the elephant's (xiang 象) head forms a rebus for the phrase taiping youxiang (太平有象), meaning 'Where there is peace, there is an omen (or elephant)'.
The inscription on the reverse of the screen is a section of the poem by Du Fu, Stirred By Autumn, no. 8 and may be translated:
Even the leftover rice husk on the parrot's beak smells as fragrant
The branch of the jade green Wutong tree provides home to the Phoenix
See a related inlaid brown lacquer table screen, Qing dynasty, in the Qing Court Collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (II) , Hong Kong, 2002, p.200, no.174.