Lot 102. A huanghuali square stool with s-braces, Late Ming-Early Qing dynasty; 44.2 by 40.7 by 40.5 cm., 17 3/8  by 16 by 15 7/8  in. Estimate 900,000 — 1,500,000. Lot Sold 3,440,000 HKD (395,448 EUR). Courtesy Sotheby's.

proportionally constructed with thumb-moulded structural members, the frame top comprising four stretchers with line mouldings, weijiaoxian, on the edges and with rounded corners, the legs similarly decorated with moulded edges and joining the top and base stretchers in pyramid joins, all supported on four small feet at the corners of the base, the stool drilled for soft seat (now restored with old matting) and supported by stretchers underneath, the stretchers and legs tennoned with C-curved braces.

Exhibited: In Pursuit of Antiquities: Thirty-fifth Anniversary Exhibition of the Min Chiu Society, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1995-96, cat. no. 233, p. 261.
The Chinese Collections, Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, 1997-99.
Grace Wu Bruce, Chan Chair and Qin Bench: The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture II, Art Museum, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1998, cat. no. 6, pp. 70-71.

Note: "A classic cube that must have inspired Rubik, the inventor of Rubik's Cube. The braces, the thumb moulding decoration and the foot pads are just right."

An unusual stool of cube form, it was constructed in the same manner but in a small scale as the early seat platform which predated beds with legs. Very different from other Ming stools, it is extremely rare i surviving examples of classic Chinese furniture.

For a similarly designed pair of stools from the collection of Charlotte Horstmann, the former owner of many piece of huanghuali furniture now at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, see Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ching Dynasties, New York, 1971, pl. 107. Another pair of stools also of cube form but without S-braces is illustrated in Grace Wu Bruce, Ming Furniture Through My Eyes, Beijing, 2015, p. 163.

Sotheby's. Ming Furniture – The Dr S Y Yip Collection, Hong Kong, 07 October 2015