A FINE AND RARE HUANGHUALI FOUR-POSTER CANOPY BED, JIAZICHUANG
PROPERTY FROM AN AMERICAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
明末/清初 黃花梨四柱架子床

LATE MING/EARLY QING DYNASTY, 17TH CENTURY

細節
明末/清初 黃花梨四柱架子床

床尺寸寬大,方形四柱,上圍子、牙板鏤雕縧環紋,床圍子鏤雕連圈紋,通靈透亮。足部圓柱形,光素。

此床雕刻精簡,格調高雅。黃花梨四柱架子床並不常見,明閔齊伋繪刻西廂記彩圖(1640年)第十三頁載錄一張四柱架子床,見2001年加州出版《Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture》,145頁,圖10.6。其他存世品極少。另一張形制相若的四柱架子床為Robert and William Drummond收藏,見1978年香港出版G. Ecke著《Chinese Domestic Furniture》,圖版25號。

明文震亨著《長物志》卷八「臥室」論:「一般設臥榻一、榻前僅置一小几,几上不設一物;設小方杌二,小櫥一;室中清潔雅素,一涉絢麗,便如閨閣中,非幽人眠雲夢月所宜」。四柱床架子床簡潔而實用,正迎合文士居室講究素雅之要求。相反六柱床一般雕工繁縟,多作嫁娶奩具,屬閨閣之用。

此床1999年9月16日於紐約佳士得拍賣,拍品79號。

來源
Sold at Christie's New York, 16 September 1999, lot 79

榮譽呈獻

Angela Kung
Angela Kung

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拍品專文

Four-poster canopy beds in huanghuali are an extremely rare form and the simple but arresting interlocked hoop motif on the present lot makes it all the more unusual. A woodblock picture dating to 1640 illustrated by Sarah Handler Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, California, 2001, p. 145 shows an example of a four-poster canopy bed but very few other extant examples are known. A closely related huanghuali example from the collection of Robert and William Drummond, with these interlocked hoops, but also interlocked double braces above them, is illustrated by Gustav Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture, Hong Kong, 1978, p. 36, no. 25. The same bed, described as being in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, is also published in Journal of The Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Spring 1992, p. 11, fig. 9, in Sarah Handler's article, A Little World Made Cunningly: The Chinese Canopy Bed, where the author mentions that the interlocked circles appropriately symbolize eternal unity and marital harmony. A drawing of a four-poster bed with interlocked circular braces on the upper part of the railing is illustrated by Wang Shixiang, Connoiseurship of Chinese Furniture, Hong Kong, 1990, vol. II, p. 134, C15. Another example with more angular latticework and supported on complex cabriole feet was sold at Christie's New York, 16 September 1998, lot 81.

The present example differs from the Sackler bed primarily in the upper canopy and the lower half. Instead of a plain apron with cabriole legs, this lot has a leg-encircling pieced apron with oval braces and straight legs. This gives the effect of airiness which is echoed in the openwork oval struts of the canopy. The use of the leg-encircling apron also refers to the decorative motifs of bamboo furniture.

It has been suggested that the four-poster bed was more likely to have been found in the men's apartments, with its ideal of 'pleasant refinement and elegant simplicity without stylish adornment', cited by Wen Zhenhang in Zhang wu zhi, Treatise on Superfluous Things, compiled in 1615-20. The six-poster 'wedding bed', often a dowry brought in with the bride, was more likely to be found in the women's quarters.

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