Lot 5711. A massive huanghuali-veneered compound warrior chest, Qing dynasty, 19th century; top: 146.7 by 64 by 89 cm, bottom: 146.7 by 64 by 185.5 cm, total: 146.7 by 64 by 274.5 cm. Lot Sold 60,000 HKD (Estimate 400,000 - 600,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2024

Note: The present cabinet is striking for its impressive size and elegant form. Known as dingxianggui, cabinets of such grand size and surmounted with ‘hat chests’ were designed to convey monumentality and strength. They were commonly displayed both in the reception rooms of a stately home, and in the women’s apartments, where they were used to store garments. Their scale altered any sense of proportion rendering other forms quite diminutive. In the novel Hong lou meng [Dream of the red chamber] by Cao Xueqin (d. 1763), Granny Liu describes her astonishment at seeing such wardrobes at the Jia family’s mansion: “That great wardrobe of yours is higher and wider than one of our rooms back home. I’m not surprised you keep a ladder in the backyard… it must be for getting things out of the compartment on top of that wardrobe of yours, for you could never reach it else” (in Sarah Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Berkley, 2001, p. 262). Compare a closely related pair of massive huanghuali-veneered compound cabinets, 18th-19th century, which was sold at Christie’s New York, 19 September 2014, lot 1116.