International Decorative Art

Three Panel Screen

Three Panel Screen

Design Date c. 1880

Designer Christopher Dresser (1834–1904, British)

Media wood and lincrusta

Dimensions 76 3/8 x 66 1/8 x 2 inches

This screen is from the Aesthetic period which looked to the pure beauty of art as opposed to the moral, political and religious purposes of art. Visual art of the Aesthetic movement was elegant and sumptuous and featured exotic natural phenomena like orchids, peacocks and butterflies. Christopher Dresser’s motif of a bird perched on flowering branches, visible on the screen, was also used by Dresser for a block print on paper wallcovering now at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. The panels are made out of lincrusta, a deeply embossed wallcovering made from gelled linseed oil and wood flour.

ON VIEW in Arts & Crafts Gallery 3

Markings unmarked

Credit Line Collection Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art

Accession Number 2015.0007