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Lot Essay
The design of the present pair of chairs was inspired by bamboo furniture. The members are carved to imitate the nodes of stalks of bamboo. The curved crestrail references the bamboo furniture construction technique of bending long stalks of bamboo using steam or heat. The abundance of bamboo in China made it popular among the lower classes, as a cost-effective and more easily portable alternative to the more luxurious hardwood furniture.
Examples of this design, with the articulated nodes, are seen in huanghuali and various hardwoods. An almost identical set of four in huanghuali with an openwork roundel above the plain huamu burl panels is in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, and illustrated in R. H. Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ch’ing Dynasties, Hong Kong, 1970, p. 125, no. 16. An almost identical single huanghuali chair to the set of four in Kansas City, Missouri, formerly of the Reverend Richard Fabian Collection, is illustrated in Classical Chinese Wood Furniture, San Francisco, 1992, p. 23. Another related huanghuali continuous horseshoe-back armchair with simulated “bamboo” members is in the Honolulu Museum of Art and illustrated in R. H. Ellsworth, Chinese Hardwood Furniture in Hawaiian Collections, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1982, p. 57, pl. 37.
Examples of this design, with the articulated nodes, are seen in huanghuali and various hardwoods. An almost identical set of four in huanghuali with an openwork roundel above the plain huamu burl panels is in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, and illustrated in R. H. Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ch’ing Dynasties, Hong Kong, 1970, p. 125, no. 16. An almost identical single huanghuali chair to the set of four in Kansas City, Missouri, formerly of the Reverend Richard Fabian Collection, is illustrated in Classical Chinese Wood Furniture, San Francisco, 1992, p. 23. Another related huanghuali continuous horseshoe-back armchair with simulated “bamboo” members is in the Honolulu Museum of Art and illustrated in R. H. Ellsworth, Chinese Hardwood Furniture in Hawaiian Collections, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1982, p. 57, pl. 37.