Chinese Floor Screen Depicting Ancestor Group

Three ancestors, seated in full dress, and they have your full attention.

This floor screen depicting an ancestor group comes from Shanxi Province, China, late 18th or early 19th century, in lacquered and painted elm wood. Chinese commemorative portraits were painted for ancestor worship, and the power of the living person was believed to reside in the portrait after death. At the center sits a man in a black robe and red-topped hat, flanked by two figures in ochre and maroon, with attendants behind. The paint shows a fine network of cracks across the dark robe. Carved panels in red and brown frame the image. Eighty-seven inches high.

The family has not changed its seating.