Lot 2942. A huanghuali six-poster canopy bed, jiazichuang, Early Qing dynasty; 93 7/8 in. (238.5 cm.) high, 89 in. (226 cm.) wide, 61 3/16 in. (155.4 cm.) deep. Estimate HKD 3,800,000 - HKD 5,800,000. Price realised HKD 5,500,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2018.

The rectangular bed frame is with a soft-mat seat set above a high waist and decorated with bamboo-form struts dividing scroll patterned panels. The curvilinear apron is carved in low relief with leafy scrolls, lingzhi fungus and chi dragons, supported on legs of square section with ruyi carving at the shoulder and terminating on raised horse-shoe feet. The four corner posts and two front posts are joined with horizontal openwork panels of three sections forming a lattice-work gallery. The lower pierced with stylised dragons, the middle reticulated with compound ruyi blooms and floral designs, and the upper carved with begonia roundels, all below a top rail and canopy reticulated with entwined chi dragons among scrolls. 

Note: Canopy beds have either six or four posts. It was common to use drapery to create a private world within a closed curtain, and examples can be seen in Ming and Qing woodblock prints. The openwork design of geometric motifs on the surrounding panels is similar to that of window panels, see the Ming-dynasty publication Yuan Ye, The Garden Treatise, by Ji Chengdated to 1631. Such design can maximise the aesthetics while utilising only small sections of the expensive material huanghuali. The design of four ruyi scrolls forming an enclosed pattern is also found on a four-poster bed with circular entrance in the Palace Museum collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 53 - Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (I), Hong Kong, 2002, pp. 2-5, no. 1. Also see another six-poster huanghuali canopy bed, ibid., pp. 6-9, no. 2, with design of wan emblems on the surrounding panels.

Christie's. Important Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Hong Kong, 28 November 2018