Lot 287. A rare pair of 'huanghuali' 'official's hat' armchairs (Sichutou Guanmaoyi), 17th-18th century . Height 115.3 cm; Width 61.3 cm; Depth 51.4 cm. Estimate 150,000 - 250,000 USD. © Sotheby's 2025

Provenance: Shing's Antique Gallery, Singapore, 2002.

Note: Characterized by its clean lines, this rare and sophisticated pair of huanghuali armchairs evinces many of the most cherished features of late Ming furniture. The overall simplicity of form is belied by the ingenuity of its construction, and the interplay between the straight lines of its design and the rounded members of the crestrail and posts is characteristic of the refined furniture aesthetic of the period.

This form of chair is often referred to by Chinese furniture connoisseurs as a sichutou guanmaoyi (‘four-ends-extended’ ‘official’s hat’ armchair), due to ends of the crestrail and the armrests extending beyond the back and front posts, respectively. While the extended crestrail and armrests likely trace their origins to more vernacular forms of Chinese furniture, by the Ming dynasty, the aesthetic had become fully integrated into the literati taste. Indeed, the broad sweep of the extended crestrail in particular conveyed prestige for its sitter; such chairs were often reserved for the highest ranked figures at any given gathering.

 The form of the present chairs in particular is distinguished by the straight members of nearly all of its component parts, eschewing the ‘yokeback’ crestrail seen in most other sichutou guanmaoyi. Apart from the slight arc of the back splat, the only curve found in the whole form is on the humpback stretchers beneath the seat frame, which are joined to the frame above with two short vertical struts; In Classical Chinese Furniture from Weiyang, London, 2017, the author Zhang Jinhua postulates that this openwork humpback stretcher joined with vertical struts is a regional variation developed in the Weiyang region of what is today Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, one of the many cities near the mouth of the Yangtze River delta that was responsible for much of the artistic output of China during Ming dynasty. The short vertical posts supporting the armrests are slightly tapered towards the top, a feature Wang Shixiang charmingly calls a haoziyi (‘rat tail’). Metal mounts at the joints of the larger members and at the four corners of the seat frame add to the scholarly aesthetic.

Compare the present pair of chairs with a very closely related single chair, but in tieliumu, in the collection of the Shanghai Museum, illustrated by Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture, Hong Kong, 1989, vol. II, p. 43, cat. no. A69; the illustrated example has the same humpback stretcher with vertical struts, but has a hard wood seat rather than the mat seat found on the current pair. Compare another single chair, also with a hard wood seat and with simpler aprons below the seat frame but with similarly straight members, in the collection of the Tsinghua University Art Museum, illustrated on the Museum’s website (accession no. 201605); and another related pair sold in these rooms, 17th-18th March 2015, lot 204.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art, New York, 18 March 2025