Lot 50. An exceptional and massive ‘huanghuali’ ‘dragon’ compound cabinet, 17th century; 315 by 188 by 79 cm. Estimate 1,000,000 - 1,500,000 GBP. © Sotheby's 2024

Provenance: Italian Private Collection.
Wannenes, 16th May 2011, lot 204.

GRANDEUR OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR

This massive cabinet is an exceptional treasure. Of extraordinary size and graceful chi dragon decoration, this truly is a masterpiece fit for the finest of palaces.

A cabinet of such substantial use of a valuable material almost certainly finds its origins in the Imperial Workshop. From the early Ming period onwards, the use of dragon designs on furniture appears to have been strictly limited to the imperial family with several important examples still preserved in the Forbidden City in Beijing. See a related pair of sijiangui still found in the Palace of Longevity and Good Health (Shoukanggong) where the Empress Dowagers once resided, illustrated in Lin Shu, ‘Zun yang jian long: cong Shoukanggong jiaju kan Chongqing huangtaihou / Discussion on Empress Dowager Chongqing from the View of Furniture Displayed at the Palace of Longevity and Health’, Forbidden City, December 2018, pp 30-31 (Fig. 1). This massive pair, adorned with dragons swirling among clouds, is a remarkable piece of imperial craftsmanship in its own right and leaves little doubt that the present piece, even taller and grander, was once a treasure of the Qing court.

Fig. 1. A pair of huanghuali cabinets at the Shoukanggong / Palace of Longevity and Good Health, Palace Museum, Beijing.

This piece is also extraordinary for the extensive use of large planks of huanghuali wood. In China, huanghuali was – and continues to be – regarded as among the most precious of hardwoods due to its vibrant colour and enchanting grain pattern. Endemic to the tropical regions of southern China and beyond, finding and transporting timber from these slow-growing trees proved to be a demanding and expensive task. As a result, even in the imperial court, it is extremely rare to find pieces of furniture made from such large frames of huanghuali.

The present lot is particularly notable for the size and its outstanding low-relief decoration of chi dragon scrolls across its front panels. This chi dragon motif can be traced back to the decorative patterns on Shang dynasty bronze vessels and has remained popular ever since. In the late Ming and Qing dynasties, chi dragon motifs on furniture were often combined with abstracted scrolls of clouds or leaves. Caught up in this tangled profusion of swirling scrollwork, the serpentine body of the dragon merges with the background, leaving its head and claws almost indistinguishable from the leaves around them. Compare similar elaborate scrollwork on two other early Qing cabinets of smaller dimensions: the first, a pair decorated with swirling chi dragons and shou characters, sold at Poly Beijing, 5th December 2020, lot 1829; the other, also of related design, sold in our New York rooms, 17th September 2013, lot 208 (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. An exceptional and massive ‘huanghuali’ ‘dragon’ compound cabinet, 17th century sold at Sotheby's New York, 17th September 2013, lot 208.  © Sotheby's

The cabinets of this design are known as sijiangui due to their ingenious compound construction. Composed of a larger lower section at the bottom and a smaller section sitting above it, cabinets of this type were frequently made in pairs and thus provided four independent storage spaces to this ‘four-part cabinet’.

Surveying publications and collections today, this cabinet appears to be one of the largest surviving examples of this design ever recorded. While most cabinets of this type are commonly found at around 270 cm, this masterpiece looms at a height of 315 cm. Only only two other examples of this style exceeding 300 cm appear to be known: one with a phoenix design, attributed to Kangxi period, sold at Poly Beijing, 18th December 2017, lot 5178; and another, of a slightly different door construction, decorated with dragons and clouds, sold at Beijing Hanhai Auctions, 22nd November 2004 , lot 3152. Compare also the front of a massive dingxianggui cabinet – of almost identical design to the present – from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, sold without top, sides or back in our New York rooms, 10th October 1987, lot 384, and offered, reconstituted as a smaller functional cabinet, at Christie’s Hong Kong, 29th September 1992, lot 951.