Lot 33. A pair of  huanghuali horseshoe-back armchairs, quanyi, 17th-18th century; 66.5 by 95.5 by 27cm., 26 1/4  by 37 5/8  by 10 5/8 in. Estimate 50,000 — 70,000 GBP. Lot sold 75,000 GBP. Photo Sotheby's.

each with curving toprail sloping down to the arms terminating in a curved hook beyond the corner posts set with shaped spandrels, the backsplat carved with an open-work ruyi-shaped panel, the lower register with a scrolled open-work panel, the back corner posts continuing below the rectangular frame, with mat seat, to the back legs joined by stretchers and a footrest.

Property from a Danish Private Collection.

Provenance: Collection of Steffen Anton Klubien, 1890 – 1970. 
Thence by descent.

Note: Elegantly constructed with a panelled splat that has been carved in openwork, horseshoe-back armchairs of this type are unusual, although a set of four similar chairs, from the collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, illustrated in Chinese Furniture. Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ch’ing Dynasties, New York, 1971, pl. 15, was sold at Christie’s New York, 17th March 2015, lot 41. Another chair with a similar splat is depicted in the painting attributed to Qiu Ying (c. 1494-c. 1552), illustrating the Yuan dynasty romance Xixiang Ji (The story of the western Wing), and published in Sarah Handler, Ming Furniture in the Light of Chinese Architecture, Berkley, 2005, p. 109.

Chairs of this type are also known with a panelled splat carved in relief, such as a wumu example included in the exhibition Chinese Hardwood Furniture in Hawaiian Collections, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, 1982, cat. no. 66; and a pair sold in our New York rooms, 11th/12th April 1990, lot 626.

The Danish author Steffan Klubien was former office manager of the Chinese Customs Office in Peking, Tianjin and Shanghai, where he served from 1914 to 1928. The chairs were purchased by him in Peking in 1916.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, New York, 11 november 2015