1993.74.A-B Screen

The folding screen, or biombo, is a unique furniture form which developed as an adaptation of Japanese screens in colonial Mexico. These syncretic luxury goods reflect the colonial elite taste for Japanese byobu, or folding screens. Byobu are moveable multi-panel screens that serve as supports for painting, and which are documented in Japan since the 7th century CE. They first arrived in the colonial viceroyalty of New Spain in 1614, when the Japanese shogun Takugawa Ieyasu sent ten examples as gifts to the viceroy. Greatly impressed with the byobu, the elite began ordering screens both from Asia and from local workshops for use in their own homes. Colonial artists adapted the format of the Japanese screens using their own materials, techniques, and visual vocabularies, which resulted in the biombo, a moveable screen with wooden or canvas panels. In addition to reflecting the international trade of the Bourbon period, biombos are also prestige objects that reflect the identity and politics of the criollo caste in New Spain—that is, those of European descent who were born in the Americas.

The elaborate painted and gilt decoration on this screen represents the baroque style of mid-18th-century European and Mexican decorative painting, but the central scenes are taken from a 17th-century emblem book by the Flemish artist Otto van Veen. In the book, van Veen illustrated moralizing quotations from the Roman writer Horace with his own engravings. The volume proved extremely popular, and numerous editions were produced during the next century, including a Spanish one in 1669. Here, the moralizing visual emblems, as well as their accompanying captions and verses of poetry, would allow the owner of the biombo to foreground their intellectualism and civic virtue while entertaining guests.

Mexico (nation): TGN: 7005560

gilt: AAT: 300379350

eighteenth century: AAT: 300404512

Colonial Latin American (Spanish Colonial / styles and periods): AAT: 300018082

Colonial Period (Spanish Colonial): AAT: 300107033

Colonial Spanish American (Spanish Colonial / styles and periods): AAT: 300343841

Horace (Roman poet): ULAN: 500404135

Veen_Otto van (Flemish painter): ULAN: 500005170

colonials (people): AAT: 300236418

decorative arts: AAT: 300054168

emblem books: AAT: 300026286

emblems (allegorical pictures): AAT: 300123040

folding screens: AAT: 300265156

furniture: AAT: 300037680

hybridity: AAT: 300262022

Japan (nation): TGN: 1000120

luxury (concept / condition): DMA

morality: AAT: 300417426

painting (visual works): AAT: 300033618

poetry: AAT: 300055931

politics: AAT: 300055537

prestige: AAT: 300343604

room dividers: AAT: 300002547

Spain (nation): TGN: 1000095

trade (function): AAT: 300061886

values (philosophical concepts): AAT: 300379408

virtue: AAT: 300379122

n.d.: private collection 

Before 1981: Hastings House Antiques, Essex, Connecticut

1981-1993: Elton and Martha Hyder, Ft Worth, purchased from above at the Tri Delta Antiques Show, Dallas 

From 1993: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Stanley and Linda Marcus Foundation, purchased from above through William B. Jordan 

The main source for this provenance is an unpublished document titled "History of Screen," original copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records object file. 

Apply to objects where number equals 1993.74.A-B