A large Chinese export lacquer six-fold screen,probably 18th century, painted in gilt on a black ground with figures pursuing everyday activities amongst pavilions in a garden, within a group of shaped panels of qilin, flowers, landscapes, tree rats and grapes between scrolling lotus borders, the reverse decorated with tiger hunting scenes in a mountainous landscape, each panel 264 x 43.5cmLiterature: A very similar twelve-fold screen, c.1725, is in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts, US, which carries mantled arms of Eccleston, for John Eccleston, director of the East India Company from 1721 to 1735. Museum object no. E84093.Provenance: Originally owned by Elihu Yale (1649-1721), President of the East India Company settlement in Fort St. George at Madras, and a benefactor of the Collegiate School in the Colony of Connecticut, which in 1718 was renamed Yale College in his honour. This very screen, as one of the pair, appeared in a 'Country Life' article on Glemham Hall published in January 1910.