18TH CENTURY

Refer to a pair of very similar yokeback armchairs with squared members, but with humpback stretchers under the seats, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, illustrated in the article by Craig Clunus, 'What is Chinese Furniture?', reproduced in Chinese Furniture: Selected Articles from Orientations 1984-1994, Hong Kong, 1996, p. 19. The author uses these chairs as an example of 'the type of minimally decorated object executed solely in hardwood timber, where the effect is achieved through the deployment of certain geometrically simple forms'. See, also, the pair of yokeback armchairs, with humpback stretchers, included in Classical and Vernacular Chinese Furniture in the Living Environment, Hong Kong, 1998, no. 10.

An unusual feature on the present lot is the addition of the inscription on the backsplat. The two separate inscriptions written in caoshu appear to be taken from a classical text.