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A RARE PAIR OF HUANGHUALI LOW-BACK ARMCHAIRS, MEIGUIYI 18th century (2) image 1
A RARE PAIR OF HUANGHUALI LOW-BACK ARMCHAIRS, MEIGUIYI 18th century (2) image 2
A RARE PAIR OF HUANGHUALI LOW-BACK ARMCHAIRS, MEIGUIYI 18th century (2) image 3
PROPERTY FROM A CANADIAN COLLECTION
Lot 13TW,Y

A RARE PAIR OF HUANGHUALI LOW-BACK ARMCHAIRS, MEIGUIYI
18th century

Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art including the Francine and Bernard Wald Collection of Fine Snuff Bottles, Part I
17 March 2025, 09:00 EDT
New York

US$150,000 - US$250,000

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A RARE PAIR OF HUANGHUALI LOW-BACK ARMCHAIRS, MEIGUIYI

18th century
The elegant 'rose chairs' composed of a horizontal top rail tongue-and grooved-into a beaded frame of apposed dragon heads centered on a central jewel and continuing down the back posts to rest on a low horizontal railing repeated on the sides and supported by pillar-shaped beaded struts, the railing tenoned into the back framing members which are run through the seats to form the back legs, the tubular arm rests ending in stove-pipe terminals joined to the seat frame fitted with a soft mat seat supported on the underside by two bowed stretchers, the front apron beautifully carved with a scrolling leaves design integrated with a beaded border running down the sides of the tubular legs and tenoned to the foot rest, the legs joined by stepped stretchers, the wood a rich honey color throughout.
32 5/8in (82.7cm) high; 22 3/4in (57.8cm) wide; 17 1/4in (43.8cm) deep
 (2).

Footnotes

十八世紀 黃花梨螭龍太極紋券口靠背玫瑰椅成對

Provenance
Property of A British Columbia collector
Sotheby's, New York, 23 September 1997, lot 465

來源：
英屬哥倫比亞私人收藏
紐約蘇富比，1997 年 9 月 23 日，拍品編號 465

Low-back armchairs have been recorded in paintings since the Song period; the Song originals were sometimes made with the back splat and arm rests the same height. See Wang Shixiang, "Development of Furniture Design and Construction from the Song to the Ming," Chinese Furniture. Selected Articles from Orientations 1984 - 1994 p. 44, where he cites details from two paintings: Appreciating Antiques around a Stove (Wei Lu Bo Gu tu) by Zhang Xunli , p. 45, Fig 7 and Eighteen Scholars (Shiba Xueshi), an anonymous painting attributed to the Southern Song but probably early Ming, p. 45, Fig 8 illustrating such chairs in use. The few existing examples, such as this lot, are dated to the early Qing period, when they became popular as hall chairs which could be drawn forward when needed for conversation. Such an event is recorded in a detail from a woodcut illustration to the San Guo zhi from the early Qing Period, published in Curtis Evarts, The Liang Yi Collection, Volume 1, Huanghuali, Hong Kong, United Sky Resources Limited, 2007, no. 15, pp. 64-65, where he also illustrates a nearly identical chair save for the design of the back apron.

Meiguiyi can be found in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing. See Hu Desheng, The Palace Museum Collection, A Treasury of Ming and Qing Furniture, Beijing, Forbidden City Publishing House, 2007, Volume 1, pp. 122-125, figs. 103-106. See also Grace Wu Bruce, Two Decades of Ming Furniture, Beijing, The Forbidden City Publishing House, 2010, pp. 120-121; and Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture, The Hung Collection, Chicago, Art Media Resources, Volume II, figure 16, pp. 42-43 and Volume 1, no. 22, pp. 84-85; see also a pair of rose chairs formerly in the collection of Dr. Y.S. Yip, published in Grace Wu Bruce, Ming Furniture, the Dr. Y.S. Yip Collection, Sotheby's 2015, no. 3, pp. 58-60. This classic form is illustrated in Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chines e Furniture, Chicago, Art Media Resources, Volume II Plates, figs. A63-68, pp. 40-42.

Se a pair of similar low-back armchairs sold Bonhams, New York, 12 September 2016, lot 6008 from the Collection of John and Celeste Fleming; a pair of low-back armchairs, 19th century, sold Christie's, New York, 24 March 2023, lot 1166; and pair of spindle-back meiguiyi sold Christies, New York, 21 March 2014, lot 2311.

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