Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel’s opulent Rue Cambon apartment – a Paris address that also houses the haute couture atelier of her namesake maison – features eight lacquered Coromandel screens, the richly decorated folding partitions that originate from China. They were a particular fascination of the couturier, who is said to have owned 32 in total, and who would use them as lavish wall decorations or to cover doorways when she wanted to hide away from guests. ‘I nearly fainted with joy when, entering a Chinese shop, I saw a Coromandel for the first time,’ she said of her opening encounter with the decorative object, aged 18.
The largest screen in the Rue Cambon apartment features a depiction of West Lake, a freshwater lake in Hangzhou, the capital of China’s historic Zhejiang province. Its serene waters, which once were located inside the ancient city’s walls, feature manmade islands and causeways, as well as numerous decorative pagodas and temples along its shoreline. As such, it has been a subject of mythic tales and poetic musings, before being used by Marco Polo as a symbol of China that he brought back to the West in the 13th century. In 2011 West Lake was designated a World Cultural Heritage Site by Unesco.
