A RARE HUANGHUALI SIX-POSTER BED WITH CARVED RAILINGS, JIAZICHUANG

Details

A RARE HUANGHUALI SIX-POSTER BED WITH CARVED RAILINGS, JIAZICHUANG
17TH CENTURY

The rectangular bed frame, with a soft-mat seat, set above a high waist, with short bamboo-form struts between which stride confronted chi dragons, supported by the stepped apron molding, the recessed apron carved in low relief with leafy scrolls, lingzhi fungus and snarling chi dragons, supported on cabriole legs with animal masks at the shoulders and terminating in claw-and-ball feet, the front railings divided into three horizontal openwork sections, the lower of writhing chi dragons, the middle with a cartouche containing a backward-glancing qilin in a landscape scene, the top with a circular decorative brace enclosing a chi dragon, the four corner posts connected by railings with the identical lower frieze and upper decorative brace but a different central section comprising shou medallions and entwined dragons, the upper panels well carved with confronted dragons and stylized shou characters beneath which are spandrels of interlocked chi dragons, minor carving replacements, mostly spandrels and roundels
88 5/8in. (225cm.) high, 89in. (226cm.) wide, 61 3/8in. (156cm.) deep

Literature

Wang Shixiang, "Jianyue Minglian" (The Beauty of Ming Furniture"), GWY, May 1993, no. 122, p. 9
Wang Shixiang, "The Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture in California", JCCFS, Autumn 1993, p. 51, no. 7
Wang et al., Masterpieces from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, 1995, p. 22, no. 11

Lot Essay

A closely related canopy bed was included in the exhibition, Beyond the Screen, and illustrated by Nancy Berliner in the Catalogue, no. 16. See the article by Curtis Evarts, "The Furniture Maker and the Woodworking Traditions of China" in the same Catalogue, pp. 58-59, where he discusses a group of these high-waisted canopy beds, including one in the Great Mosque in Xi'an, and one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, and suggests that they were produced by a specialized workshop in northern China over several generations

Wang et al. discuss the qilin decorative panel suggesting that as this motif was used on rank badges during the Qing dynasty, it is possible that the original owner of the bed was the wife of a Qing official. For a seventeenth century textile with a similar backward-glancing qilin, refer to The Art of Textiles, Spink and Son Ltd, December 6-20, 1989, no. 42