With its clean, architectural lines, built-in bookshelves hugging the walls and refined classic air, this serene working environment is a successful contemporary adaptation of the traditional Chinese scholar's study.
The furniture of this office was sourced from antiques dealer Nicholas Grindley in London; there is a 19th-century hong mu desk with cracked ice design and a set of four horseshoe armchairs (three pictured) dressed with stylish contemporary padded cushions for extra comfort. O n the wall is a pair of ancestor portraits, purchased in Hong Kong, which look down over the modern day business proceedings. At the end of the room is a spindle-back settee, also made of hong mu.
Light filters into the office through three large windows shielded with blinds. The wooden ceiling and floor mouldings have been stained in the same shade as the huanghuali document box (on the marble coffee table) and the huanghuali table, which hosts a 15-piece group of seated tomb musicians from the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534). The calligraphy brush set and rack was a gift and is merely decorative.
A Personal Passion
Famed Asian art dealer and collector Robert Hatfield Ellsworth lives in the largest single-floor apartment on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue in New York City. Some say that the impressive 20-plus roomed space-which takes up 1,280 sq m (13,780 sq ft)-resembles a grand American museum of the best of Chinese art. But Ellsworth is keen to point out that he sees it as a bachelor pad that is very much lived in. "The furniture and furnishings have been in the same place since I moved in, but it is not a museum setting. It is very much a home," he explains, adding that the apartment is at its best when it is filled with 150 people, all having a good time.
Ellsworth moved here in 1977 and spent a year totally restoring the apartment back to its original format, which included the tiling in the kitchens and pantries The block was built in 1929, the year of his birth, which was, he says, "a happy coincidence". The expansive space has been filled with Southeast Asian bronzes, sculpture and · paintings, his special passions. "Someone once wrote of my home that it was the only apartment big enough in town to accommodate my ego," says Ellsworth, happily agreeing that this is probably true.
Distinguished in his field, Ellsworth, now 71, is an adviser to the Chinese Ministry of Culture and in 1993 was made an honorary Chinese citizen as result of his preservation. work on Ming dynasty buildings in Anhui province. He is also the author of a number of books, including Chinese Furniture. Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, published in 1971.
In a corner of the living room is a Japanese screen which dates from the late 16th century and depicts the Imperial horse stables. The carpet is late 17th-century Chinese and the pair of huanghuali horseshoe back chairs are part of a set of four 17th-century pieces.
The panelling in the entrance hall is original and is made of Georgia pine, the most popular timber for panelling when the apartment was built in 1929. The carpet with dragon motif was not woven for the floor; it would have been wound around a pillar in an Imperial palace hall. When the two sides join the dragon's body becomes complete. The painting is from a set of 20th-century Chinese paintings; the rest, over 90 of them, are hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, not far from Ellsworth's home.
The impressive dining room table was one of the first types of mechanical furniture ever built and features a 0.25-m (10-in) flap all around. This can be folded down so the table becomes nearly half a metre (1.5 ft) smaller. In the middle is a ' Lazy Susan' on which stands a Worcester china pot, part of a collection. The pair of 17th-century Chinese cabinets is made of huanghuali and camphor woods.
A 10th-century Chinese wood sculpture of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, the most popular deity in Chinese Buddhism. It was found in a Chinese temple.
Looking through the living room into the dining room: flanking the door is a pair of mountain landscapes by Fu Boo Shih, 1940. The large figure on the left is 12th-century Japanese; the Chinese carpet is late 17th century/ early 18th century. The barrel stool in the foreground is made of laohuali, a type of rosewood. Such stools were originally made of bamboo, hence their shape. The top is marble-"very good as it doesn't leave stains when people put their drinks down on them," notes the owner.
An impressive 11th-century North Italian lion guards the entrance hall.
The New Mandarin Style
As a scholar, patron and collector of Chinese furniture and art, Koi-Yin Lo pours her energies into broadening the understanding of Chinese culture around the world. Although perhaps best known as a jewellery designer, she is also the author of a number of books on Chinese art and culture.
Lo is interested not only in furniture's aesthetic properties but also in how it would have been displayed and used at the time. Her private collection, which incorporates both classical and vernacular furniture, is testament to her design eye (with its well-honed sense of proportion and line) Although most of her collection has been loaned to museums, such as Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum, her Hong Kong home brims with a remarkable collection of furniture and artifacts.
Lo believes that vernacular pieces can hold their own in terms of look, appeal and interest. In her Mid-Levels apartment, she uses luxurious textures and pole colours as a backdrop to display impressive pieces, such as a pair or 18th-century northern elmwood and burlwood compound cabinets from Beijing; a rare 18th-century cedarwood low platform in three pieces from jiangnan; and a pair of 17thor 18th-century window lattice panels from Suzhou decorated with carved persimmons.
Her sense of design also comes into ploy through creative interpretations of traditional Chinese style and she mixes and matches with panache Song dynasty figures stand alongside Ming ceremonial tablets; jade, coral and gemstones hang from cupboard locks; and her own-design Buddhist knots of destiny make on interesting table centre-piece. All have clean lines, toning colours and a modern presentation, lending the antique collections a modern air.
Clean lines, lack of ornamentation and a subtle colour scheme characterize Kai-Yin La's living room (right), where Chinese art is hung on the walls with architectural precision. A pair of window panels (one shown here) features the persimmon in a four-petal design. "One of the earliest plant motifs used in China, the persimmon dates more than l,800 years to the Han dynasty," she says. On a Ming side table at the back of the room is a pot filled with 200-year-old fungus called lingzhi found in Anhui province.
A pair of 19th-century compound cabinets in yu mu (northern elmwood) and hua mu (burlwood) stand tall at the end of the living room (left). Traditional Chinese houses were