The frame of the panel is decorated with a bracken pattern similar to that found on Chinese carved lacquer.
One side of the panel is decorated with a cockerel, a hen and three chicks standing near an embankment on which a peony grows; the other side with a Chinese man and child in a vast landscape with mountains, pavilions and a flight of cranes.
The 1835 Burghley Inventory records: ‘Japan Closet, Glass case opposite the window, A Screen black & Gold.’
The 1867 Burghley Inventory records: ‘Cabinets, No 88 Japan Closet, A black and gold screen.’
The original stand for the screen was no longer extant at the time of the Japanese Lacquer at Burghley exhibition in 2013.
In readiness for the exhibition, a rosewood replacement was made by Toshi Iwata, an extremely talented Japanese craftsman resident at Burghley.
