The current example with chi dragon carving and lattice-pattern railing belong to the most classic designs of Chinese furniture. Canopy beds have either six or four posts joined at the top by a covering. It was common practice to use the drapery to create a private world within the closed curtain, and examples can be seen in Ming and Qing woodblock prints. Compare a huanghuali six-post canopy bed with lattice-pattern railings is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, illustrated in Sarah Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2001, p. 147, fig. 10.7, and another canopy bed with lattice-patterns at the Palace Museum, illustrated in Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (I), The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 2002, pp. 6-7 , pl. 2. This lot is almost identical to the piece illustrated in San cai tu hui (Pictorial Encyclopedia of Heaven, Earth, and Man), op cit, 2001, p.148(fig.1).