Bonhams 1793 : A pair of hardwood folding chairs, jiaoyi 17th/18th century

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8 Nov 2012 10:00 GMT London, New Bond Street
Fine Chinese Art
Back to auction 20024

A pair of hardwood folding chairs, jiaoyi

17th/18th century
Each with a central curved splat carved with three cartouches, the top with precious objects amid wisps of vapour, the central cartouche with a Daoist scene of a deer looking up at a monkey clambering up a gnarled pine tree below a crane holding a peach spray in its beak, the lower cartouche with a blossoming prunus tree, all surmounted by a yoke-back top, framed by two curved supports reaching down to the X-frame raised atop the rectangular feet with the front apron reinforced with metal mounts, the fabric seat later. The larger 48.6cm x 38.5cm x 105cm (19in x 15¼in x 41½in) (2).

Sold for £17,500 inc. premium

Footnotes

Provenance: an Irish private collection

十七/十八世紀硬木鏤雕松鹿猴紋交椅一對

來源：愛爾蘭私人收藏

Often known as 'tax collector's chairs', since they could be easily carried from town to town with a tax collector making his rounds, these travelling chairs were light, practical and beautiful in their simplicity. Compare a similar stool from the Qing Court Collection, dated to the Ming dynasty, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (I), Hong Kong, 2002, no.47, and a related chair from the mid-Qing dynasty illustrated in Ming Qing Gongting Jiaju (I), Beijing, 2006, p.90.