By the mid-1980s, as China’s new economic policy kicked into gear, antique furniture began flooding out of China and inevitably surfaced around Hong Kong’s famous “Cat Street.” Dealers and collectors who recognized their worth snapped them up, including published collectors like Peter Fung, Robert Piccus, Mimi Hung and Dr Shing Yiu Yip. While most transactions occurred privately, the growing popularity of Chinese furniture became patently obvious when a 1996 auction at Christie’s Hong Kong netted US$11.2 million—the highest total for an individual collection of Chinese art in a decade. The benchmark for individual items has been repeatedly surpassed.
The trend will probably continue as China’s new rich rediscover their past. China’s emerging art aficionados, such as Zhao Ping, a Beijing entrepreneur, are part of a new wave rekindling the Chinese passion for collecting objets d’art. He says, “I believe collecting can help me learn about Chinese history”—something he did not have time to appreciate in school when he was studying electronics. A new Cultural Revolution is transforming the market. Antique Chinese furniture is entering a period of renaissance.
Fig. 4 Southern official’s hat chair with a non-protruding crest rail, huanghuali. Photo courtesy Robert A. Piccus.
Fig. 5 A petite rose chair with scrolling grass pattern carved in relief on the apron, huanghuali, eighteenth century, North China. This chair is unusual because it lacks a backrest. Photo courtesy Peter Fung.
Fig. 6 Interior of Cola Ma’s home in the city of Tianjin. Most of the furniture is from Shanxi province, a specialty of Ma, who has become an expert in softwood or vernacular furniture.
Fig. 7 The “Hall of Benevolence,” the principal formal room of the Shen family home in Luzhi, Jiangsu province, built in 1870. Typical of late Qing-dynasty residences, the room is richly ornamented with furniture, paneling, latticework, paintings and calligraphy.
Evolving Styles
For centuries the Chinese, like the Japanese, had a mat culture. Resting, socializing and eating all occurred while kneeling, sitting cross-legged or reclining on woven mats on the ground surrounded by basic utensils and a handful of low-level furnishings. Chinese furniture, as we know it today, did not come into being until the Tang dynasty (AD 618–906). By the beginning of the Northern Song dynasty (AD 960–1127), high-level officials had graduated to tables and chairs. The new culture of sitting reached all levels of society by the end of the dynasty. By this time, too, the designs and techniques of making furniture had become established, and owning furniture was no longer the prerogative of the privileged few.
How Chinese furniture evolved is still a mystery. What we know is that over 2000 years ago, the ancients began constructing platforms to raise themselves off the cold earthen floors. The oldest known piece of furniture is a black lacquered bed found during the 1957 excavation of a tomb in Xinyang, Henan province, that dates back to the Warring States period (475 BC–AD 221). Scholars speculate that this intricately carved bed, made for a warlord of the southern kingdom of Chu, was not only used for sleeping but doubled as a ceremonial platform from which he ruled.
Fig. 8 “Palace Women,” attributed to Leng Mei, a court artist living in Emperor Kangxi’s reign during the Qing dynasty (AD 1644–1911), and active in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The painting depicts a southern official’s armchair and a square Eight Immortals table. Photo courtesy National Palace Museum of Taipei.
Fig. 9 Woodblock print of an informal scene of three people seated on drum-shaped stools made of rattan or draped in fabric around a square Eight Immortals table, from The Story of Hong Fu, published in the Wanli period (AD 1572–1620). Photo courtesy Grace Wu Bruce.
Fig. 10 Woodblock print of men on round waisted stools eating at a side table in a house of pleasure, from a chapter in the drama A Pair of Fishes, published in the Wanli period (AD 1572–1620). Photo courtesy Grace Wu Bruce.
Fig. 11 Folding yoke-back chair made of softwood and coated in a dark lacquer, seventeenth century. This chair—one of a pair—was once adorned with red lacquer ornamentation bearing writhing dragons. The opened carved panel at the top of the splat is a ruyi-shaped medallion. The decoration on the bottom of the splat is a kunmen-shaped opening. When folded, this chair measures only 7½ inches (19 cm) wide. Photo courtesy Robert A. Piccus.
Fig. 12 Folding stool, huanghuali, ca. early eighteenth century. Photo courtesy Robert A. Piccus.
Fig. 13 The hinge at the junction of the crossed legs is called a baitong. These hinges are both decorative and provide stability for the folding stool. Photo courtesy Robert A. Piccus.
Fig. 14 During the Song dynasty, a backrest was added to the folding stool, creating one of the first forms of chair. Collection of Cola Ma.
Bas-reliefs and murals found in Han tombs in Henan province showing cross-legged men on low couches or ta was further proof that raised platforms existed back then. These seats were most likely an adaptation of the brick platform known as the kang, which was warmed by flues and covered with thick mats and rugs to serve as a bed in cold weather.
The evolution from mat to chair did not occur overnight. There were many transitional forms of seating customs. Floor poses ranged from kneeling to a cross-legged position. Even when people took to elevated platforms, they reclined on them as if they were still seated on the ground. It took many centuries before people sat upright in their seats with their legs extended to the floor.
The history of furniture saw two parallel tracks of development. The prototype, which appeared sometime during the reign of Han Lingdi (AD 168–188), may have been borrowed from foreigners. This form of transportable stool or day bed was called a huchuang or barbarian bed, and it became a symbol of power. The oversized stool was simple: the front and back legs were hinged where they cross, and a seat was created by threading a rope across the top stretchers (Figs.12, 13). The sheer act of raised seating was designed to convey an impression of authority among underlings, particularly on the battlefield where it was used by commanders. The huchuang, however, was eventually domesticated and popularized, and used by prince and peddler alike. Once folded, it was easy to sling across a shoulder (Figs. 11, 14). By the Song dynasty (AD 960–1279), a backrest was added to the simple stool, creating a version of what we know as the British deck chair. These chairs were often constructed from light softwood and then lacquered. The curve of the back splat is nicely aligned with the rear stiles and legs, which are fashioned from the same piece of wood. Other versions of this chair emerged, including a folding settee that could seat three persons, and folding chairs with arms—the most regal being the folding horseshoe chair (Fig. 15).
The etymology of the huchuang is fuzzy. It is unclear just who the so-called “barbarians” were. It is unlikely they came from the Mongolian hordes in the north because there is no evidence that they used such seats. Instead, scholars