Modern fireback with Chinese-style decoration illustrating

Style Other / Ref.11717

Modern fireback with Chinese-style decoration illustrating "The Great Mogul"

Dimensions
Width 27'' ½ 70cm
Height 28'' ¾ 73cm

Origin:
France, 20th century

Status:
Very good condition.

20th century cast iron fireback illustrating "The Great Mogul". The chinoiserie is a caracteristic of the Louis XV Rocaille style. A lot of chinoiserie was designed by Boucher, adapted also to furniture, objets d'art, materials, and porcelain. A very similar fireback is in the Musée of Orleans.

CHINOISERIE, decorative work produced under the influence of Chinese art, applied particularly to the more fanciful and extravagant manifestations. Intimations of Eastern art reached Europe in the Middle Ages in the porcelains brought by returning travelers. Eastern trade was maintained during the intervening centuries, and the East India trading companies of the 17th and 18th cent. imported Chinese lacquers and porcelains. Dutch ceramics quickly showed the influence of Chinese blue-and-white porcelains. In the middle of the 18th cent. the enthusiasm for Chinese objects affected practically every decorative art applied to interiors, furniture, tapestries, and bibelots and supplied artisans with fanciful motifs of scenery, human figures, pagodas, intricate lattices, and exotic birds and flowers. In France the Louis XV style gave especial opportunities to chinoiserie, as it blended well with the established rococo . Whole rooms, such as those at Chantilly, were painted with compositions in chinoiserie, and Watteau and other artists brought consummate craftsmanship to the style.

An identical fireback is available on our website under the reference 0554