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28 août 2011

A fine pair of 'Huanghuali' yokeback armchairs (Sichutouguanmaoyi). 17th century

A_FINE_PAIR_OF__HUANGHUALI__YOKEBACK_ARMCHAIRS__SICHUTOU_GUANMAOYI_

A fine pair of 'Huanghuali' yokeback armchairs (Sichutouguanmaoyi). 17th century. Photo Sotheby's

each finely carved, the undulating bow-shaped toprail with flattened headrest and rounded terminals, supported on an elegantly curved back splat and tapered stiles, extending to S-shaped armrails held by the curved front posts with lobed brackets and mid-section support, the front and back posts continuing through the rectangular cane seat to form the legs of square section, the side aprons and spandrels set with simple beading, the front apron carved to the center with addorsed floral sprays, the legs held by box-stretchers with a flattened foot rest, a simple apron attached to the front, the rounded square stretchers with aprons on the sides and a plain square stretcher along the back, the wood of a rich, reddish-brown color with variegated figuring and furring (2). Height 46 in., 116.8 cm; Width 23 5/8 in., 60 cm; Depth 20 3/4 in., 52.7 cm. Estimate 800,000-1,200,000 USD

PROVENANCE: MD Flacks Ltd., New York, 1997.

NOTE: Yokeback chairs, or 'official's hat armchairs' as they are termed in China, were first depicted in Buddhist contexts as early as the mid-sixth century, and twelfth century pottery yokeback chairs are found in Jin dynasty tombs. During the seventeenth century elegant huanghuali chairs such as the present type were hung with patterned silk kesi runners, held in place between the terminals of the crestrail. Sarah Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Hong Kong 2001, pp. 43-59, devotes a chapter to the form and reproduces a number of paintings and prints depicting yokeback chairs 'in use' and comments that the 'hardwood yokeback chair, symbol of power and prestige, crossed over class boundaries.'

The present chairs are distinguished by their large size, the generous sweep of the crestrail, the well-shaped terminals, and the elegantly curved front and back posts, both of which continue through the seat to form the legs and although the general type is widely published, the majority do not exhibit such elegant form or proportion. Examples of these armchairs with variation in the decoration on the aprons have been illustrated by Robert Hatfield Ellsworth,these armchair Nicholas Grindley and Anita Christy, Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, cat. no. 8; Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, Chinese Hardwood Furniture in Hawaiian Collections, Honolulu, 1982, fig. 7; Gustav Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture, Dover, 1986, p. 102, pl. 80; Kai-Yin Lo, Classical and Vernacular Furniture in the Living Environment, Chicago, 1998, fig. 9; Curtis Evarts and Wang Shixiang, Masterpieces from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, San Francisco, 1995, no. 22; and Grace Wu Bruce, Two Decades of Ming Furniture, Beijing, 2010, p. 110.

Somewhat similar pairs were sold in these rooms 28th September 1989, lot 324, and 8th April 1988, lot 503. A pair with arch-shaped aprons but without the floral-spray carvings from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, sold at Christie's, New York, 19th September 1996, lot 85.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. New York. 14 september 2011 www.sothebys.com

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