Europe was already fascinated by the alien beauty of East Asian craftsmanship in the 16th century. Chinese porcelain, silk paintings and Japanese lacquered work soon became very popular. Johann Seyfried von Eggenberg bought a number of exotic treasures of this kind between 1660 and 1680, in the course of a lavish refurbishing of the princely residences in Eggenberg and Graz, including a screen ‘laid with Indian paper’, which was already in the family Palais in Graz pre-1700. When the Eggenberg state rooms were refurbished again post-1754, this old screen was taken apart and inserted into the wall-covering of a fashionable ‘Japanese cabinet’ as exotic decoration. However, after the Eggenberg family died out in 1774, knowledge about the origin of this work of art was lost. It was that circumstance that led to the screen surviving unrecognised in Schloss Eggenberg so long.
