Individual Media Tours for the Exhibition “Palace Life Unfolds: Conserving a Chinese Lacquer Screen”

Spring Morning in the Han Palace, unnamed lacquer artists after a design by Sheng Nian (act. ca. 1650–70s), China, Qing dynasty, Kangxi reign, May–June 1672, kuancai (Coromandel) screen, prepared wooden core with lacquer and carving filled with pigment-and-gold decoration, metal hinges, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Freer Gallery of Art, Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1906.42

June 15, 2023

WHAT:	Individually scheduled press tours for “Palace Life Unfolds: Conserving a Chinese Lacquer Screen”
WHEN:	[Open to the public] July 15–Jan. 28, 2024
WHERE:	Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery 1050 Independence Ave. S.W.
WHO:	Jan Stuart, Melvin R. Seiden Curator of Chinese Art Strahan, head of conservation and scientific research Ellen Chase, objects conservator

Members of the media are invited to view the exhibition “Palace Life Unfolds: Conserving a Chinese Lacquer Screen.” On display for the first time after a major conservation project, this Chinese lacquer screen dated to 1672 newly reveals intricate pictorial details that had been obscured by centuries of wear and use. The composition, “Spring Morning in the Han Palace,” presents an idealized, ahistorical view of the lives of women in an imperial palace of the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD). This exhibition examines the screen’s meaning and use in China, the techniques of its manufacture and the efforts of museum staff to research and conserve this work of art. It also explores the popularity of such screens as imported luxuries in Europe.

This screen has not been exhibited since 1976 due to its fragile condition. It was brightly colored when it was first created, but over the years the painted areas darkened and flaked, old restorations became discolored and cracks developed. The museum’s concern for its condition and the decision to exhibit it initiated a major treatment campaign. This conservation project was the first chance to work on all panels together as a cohesive object, and it also provided an opportunity to conserve the screen and to determine how and from what materials it was originally made.

“The screen is so richly appealing that it is just as rewarding to modern audiences in its current faded state as it would have been to the original audience.”

– Jan Stuart, Melvin R. Seiden Curator of Chinese Art

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Individual Media Tours for the Exhibition “Palace Life Unfolds: Conserving a Chinese Lacquer Screen”

“The screen is so richly appealing that it is just as rewarding to modern audiences in its current faded state as it would have been to the original audience.”

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