Chinese Door Lintel with Scroll & Rope Motif

Short carved beam with an open scroll panel in the center and tangled foliage at the ends.

This door lintel with scroll & rope motif is by Carved Poplar, from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 17th or 18th century. As original period furniture became harder to find, restoration artists began salvaging fragments from incomplete pieces to make complete ones, and eventually full reproductions began to surface. Low, narrow bar with a central rectangle carved like an unrolled scroll with small figures, and thick, deep leafy carving bulging at each end. The surface is a weathered gray-brown with dark recesses and some wear on the corners. It is 98 inches long, 5.5 deep and 19 high.

Neatly reads like a story told by two bushes.