Live Auction 13751Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
A LARGE HUANGHUALI THREE-DRAWER COFFER
Lot 949PROPERTY FROM THE NANCY AND ED ROSENTHAL COLLECTION

A LARGE HUANGHUALI THREE-DRAWER COFFER

Closed15 September 2017

Price Realised

USD 287,500

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A LARGE HUANGHUALI THREE-DRAWER COFFER
The single-panel top is set in a rectangular frame fitted with everted ends above three drawers and a single attractively grained horizontal floating panel above shaped, finely beaded apron carved at the center with a lotus bloom. The whole is raised on gently splayed legs of square section.
33 ¼ in. (84.3 cm.) high, 79 ¾ in. (200.8 cm.) wide, 22 ¼ in. (56.5 cm.) deep

Chan Shing Kee, Hong Kong, February 2001.

Specialist note

Compare a related two-drawer huanghuali coffer also exhibiting the same elegant splay of the legs joined by the finely carved cusped apron illustrated by S. Handler in Ming Furniture in the Light of Chinese Architecture, Berkeley, 2005, p. 173. See, also a three-drawer altar coffer in the Victoria & Albert Museum, set with elaborate openwork side spandrels illustrated by C. Clunas in Chinese Furniture, London, 1988, p. 84, pl. 68. For a discussion of this form, refer to Curtis Everts, "The Enigmatic Altar Coffer," Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Autumn 1994, pp. 29-44.