LATE 17TH-18TH CENTURY

Details

A RARE ZITAN 'SOUTHERN OFFICIAL'S HAT' ARMCHAIR
LATE 17TH-18TH CENTURY
The top rail is supported on an S-shaped back splat and curved rear posts, which continue to form the rear legs. The curved arms are supported on tapering braces and front posts, above a mat seat set within a rectangular frame and plain aprons fitted on the front and sides with a lattice-work pattern above straight stretchers. The legs are joined by plain stretchers at the sides and a foot rest at the front.
36 1⁄2 in. (92.7 cm.) high, 23 1⁄4 in. (59 cm.) wide, 21 1⁄8 in. (53.5 cm.) deep

Provenance

Ming Furniture Ltd., New York, November 1989.

Literature

S. Handler, Ming Furniture In the Light of Chinese Architecture, New York, 2005, p. 119.
V. Bower, S. Handler and J. Burris, Brush Clay Wood: The Nancy and Ed Rosenthal Collection of Chinese Art, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, 2008, p. 49, fig. 20.

Exhibited

Cincinnati, Taft Museum of Art, Brush Clay Wood: The Nancy and Ed Rosenthal Collection of Chinese Art, 7 November 2008 - 11 January 2009.

Conditions of sale

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Rufus Chen (陳嘉安) Head of Sale, AVP, Specialist

asianartny@christies.com +1 212 636 2180

Lot Essay

The chair design was most likely inspired by bamboo prototypes, most notably seen in the fretwork below the seat. A nanmu six-post canopy bed illustrated by Zhang Jinhua in The Classical Chinese Furniture of Weiyang: Representative Examples, vol. 2, London, 2016, pp. 258-9, is constructed with similar design in the openwork panels at the top of the bed and on the back and side railings. See, also, a bamboo-inspired huanghuali side table in the Qing Court Collection illustrated in The Complete Collection of Ming and Qing Dynasty Furniture in the Palace Museum: Table, vol. 7, Beijing, 2015, p. 136-7, pl. 57, which exhibits a similar conception of the stretchers under the table commonly seen on bamboo examples.

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