On Sunday 8th April 2009 Sotheby's will sell the "Bei Gu Cang" collection of Chinese furniture in Hong Kong. They have put an excellent downloadable catalogue (in pdf form) of the furniture on their website (link at the bottom of this page): it is perhaps the best free book on Chinese furniture that we are likely to be offered this year, with superb illustrations. It also provides an interesting alternative perspective on Chinese classical furniture, re-focusing attention on lacquered furniture and counterbalancing a bias in most published works that feature mainly hardwood pieces.
The collection consists of classically styled furniture finished in red and black lacquer, both plain and inlaid with stone and mother of pearl or finished with flecks of mother of pearl. Some of the shapes will be familiar to furniture collectors, but many of the finishes and decoration will be a revelation. The catalogue includes informative essays by Jerry JI Chen on lacquered furniture, highlighting a Ming Imperial preference for red lacquer, later replaced by Qing taste that seems to have preferred black pieces, by Hajni Elias on the refurbishment of the Forbidden City after a major fire in 1597, and Imperial lacquered pieces by Palace Museum specialist Hu Desheng.
It may come as a surprise to those who associate "Ming" furniture with huanghuali and other hardwoods to find that these types are not mentioned in the early and mid-Ming descriptions of interior furnishings mentioned in these essays: instead lacquer reigns supreme in these periods, and still appears to have been the finish of choice in the late Ming (Wanli) period, from which most of the items in this catalogue appear to date. This is not a new finding: it has been well understood by furniture scholars for some time and referred to in publications by Sarah Handler and Craig Clunas for example, but with a few exceptions most of the pieces illustrated in books by those writers and others have been hardwood, while this catalogue provides solid evidence of a different taste. The items range from simple tables with plain red and black finishes, to sumptuous cabinets with inlaid or painted decoration in gold.
The reason for the bias towards hardwoods in present-day collections and publications is principally because lacquer finishes are not durable, and they are exceedingly tricky to restore. A western taste for polished hardwood may also have directly or indirectly influenced the antique furniture trade in China: why spend time and money restoring a softwood piece with a lacquer finish when it can be stripped, stained and sold much more readily as "faux-hardwood"? The tastes of the foreign clientele who bought restored Chinese furniture from the 1930s onwards may have unwittingly distorted the entire history of Chinese traditional furniture.
In the mid-1990s I lived in South China, in a region where much of the furniture trade maintained warehouses for the collection of old furniture, prior to restoration and shipment to Hong Kong. I recall looking at great piles of unrestored furniture and being struck by the quantities of decayed lacquer, mostly destined to be sanded off and stained brown prior to sale. The only items where lacquered finishes were frequently preserved were large cabinets with genre scenes painted on the front faces. This is perhaps because large flat surfaces held onto their lacquer coats better than other types of furniture, but also because furniture dealers (perhaps) sensed value in the attractive paintings on these items. There are still nice pieces to be had (occasionally) in furniture warehouses, but watch out for repainting and re-gilding.
The fact is that lacquer, particularly the kind applied thickly on top of a base of cloth impregnated with clay, does crack with age. This feature was in fact expected and celebrated by Chinese furniture connoisseurs from the early Ming: the crackle on furniture was admired and compared to the patterns on the backs of turtle shells. After this period tastes changed, and celebration of the ephemeral aspects of life amongst the literati of the Ming was replaced by the aristocratic showiness of the Qing period. The increasing importation of hardwoods from southeast Asia from the 1700s onwards also provided new interests, though lacquered furniture continued to be popular through the 18th and 19th centuries. The true inheritors of the early Ming and pre-Ming tastes (as in so many other aspects) are perhaps the Japanese, where lacquered finishes designed to crackle, wear and decay in interesting ways are still made to this day.
The collection consists of classically styled furniture finished in red and black lacquer, both plain and inlaid with stone and mother of pearl or finished with flecks of mother of pearl. Some of the shapes will be familiar to furniture collectors, but many of the finishes and decoration will be a revelation. The catalogue includes informative essays by Jerry JI Chen on lacquered furniture, highlighting a Ming Imperial preference for red lacquer, later replaced by Qing taste that seems to have preferred black pieces, by Hajni Elias on the refurbishment of the Forbidden City after a major fire in 1597, and Imperial lacquered pieces by Palace Museum specialist Hu Desheng.
It may come as a surprise to those who associate "Ming" furniture with huanghuali and other hardwoods to find that these types are not mentioned in the early and mid-Ming descriptions of interior furnishings mentioned in these essays: instead lacquer reigns supreme in these periods, and still appears to have been the finish of choice in the late Ming (Wanli) period, from which most of the items in this catalogue appear to date. This is not a new finding: it has been well understood by furniture scholars for some time and referred to in publications by Sarah Handler and Craig Clunas for example, but with a few exceptions most of the pieces illustrated in books by those writers and others have been hardwood, while this catalogue provides solid evidence of a different taste. The items range from simple tables with plain red and black finishes, to sumptuous cabinets with inlaid or painted decoration in gold.
The reason for the bias towards hardwoods in present-day collections and publications is principally because lacquer finishes are not durable, and they are exceedingly tricky to restore. A western taste for polished hardwood may also have directly or indirectly influenced the antique furniture trade in China: why spend time and money restoring a softwood piece with a lacquer finish when it can be stripped, stained and sold much more readily as "faux-hardwood"? The tastes of the foreign clientele who bought restored Chinese furniture from the 1930s onwards may have unwittingly distorted the entire history of Chinese traditional furniture.
In the mid-1990s I lived in South China, in a region where much of the furniture trade maintained warehouses for the collection of old furniture, prior to restoration and shipment to Hong Kong. I recall looking at great piles of unrestored furniture and being struck by the quantities of decayed lacquer, mostly destined to be sanded off and stained brown prior to sale. The only items where lacquered finishes were frequently preserved were large cabinets with genre scenes painted on the front faces. This is perhaps because large flat surfaces held onto their lacquer coats better than other types of furniture, but also because furniture dealers (perhaps) sensed value in the attractive paintings on these items. There are still nice pieces to be had (occasionally) in furniture warehouses, but watch out for repainting and re-gilding.
The fact is that lacquer, particularly the kind applied thickly on top of a base of cloth impregnated with clay, does crack with age. This feature was in fact expected and celebrated by Chinese furniture connoisseurs from the early Ming: the crackle on furniture was admired and compared to the patterns on the backs of turtle shells. After this period tastes changed, and celebration of the ephemeral aspects of life amongst the literati of the Ming was replaced by the aristocratic showiness of the Qing period. The increasing importation of hardwoods from southeast Asia from the 1700s onwards also provided new interests, though lacquered furniture continued to be popular through the 18th and 19th centuries. The true inheritors of the early Ming and pre-Ming tastes (as in so many other aspects) are perhaps the Japanese, where lacquered finishes designed to crackle, wear and decay in interesting ways are still made to this day.
While most of us will not be bidding on these items on the 8th April (estimated prices running from the hundreds of thousands of dollars into the millions), this catalogue is nevertheless worth downloading and studying by anyone with a more than superficial interest in Chinese furniture. The shapes and decoration of such pieces, used by the Chinese court and by noble families, provided the prototypes for the countless thousands of pieces of Chinese furniture, both from town and country, that came after.
To download the sale catalogue follow this link, click on "Ming Imperial Furniture" and then on "view catalogue" at the bottom of the page. It's 38Mb so will take a little while to download.
There are some general tips on shopping for Chinese antiques, including furniture on my website, where as a bonus you can also gaze enviously at my own Ningbo lacquered cabinet.
To download the sale catalogue follow this link, click on "Ming Imperial Furniture" and then on "view catalogue" at the bottom of the page. It's 38Mb so will take a little while to download.
There are some general tips on shopping for Chinese antiques, including furniture on my website, where as a bonus you can also gaze enviously at my own Ningbo lacquered cabinet.
