An in-depth study of leather screens in the journal of the Furniture Society of England (see Eloy Koldeweij, “Gilt Leather Hangings in Chinoiserie and other styles: An English Specialty,” in Furniture History, vol. XXXVI, pp. 61–101 [2000]) has recently uncovered that hundreds of leatherworkers in mid-eighteenth century London created screens as exports to Holland. Previously specialists thought that Dutch leatherworkers produced the screens because of the quantity found in Holland.

This colorful painted leather screen depicts a fanciful menagerie of ducks, a peacock, parrot, and spaniel in a garden landscape. The lush, green setting, replete with classical urn, sculpture, and balustrade, evokes the lavish gardens cultivated by
eighteenth-century European gentry.