Page 44 - Bonhams, Fine Chinese Art, London November 3, 2022

111 Y
A VERY RARE HUANGHUALI CLOTHES RACK, YIJIA
Mid Qing Dynasty
The two slender corner posts of square section and joined to the
top rail terminating with dragon-heads, three additional horizontal
openwork panels of chilong, coin-shaped scrolls, and angular floral
scrolls, all fitted into shoe feet carved with large florettes and standing
spandrels with openwork dragons, the wood of dark-chocolate tone.
188cm (74in) high x 56cm (22in) deep x 202cm (79 1/2in) wide. (9).

£15,000 - 20,000
CNY120,000 - 160,000

清中期 黃花梨龍首衣架

In China, clothing racks were used in men’s and women’s sleeping
quarters for the temporary placement of garments. Clothes could be
draped over the top rail or middle panel. At night, nobles tossed their
discarded robes over a garment rack to protect them from wrinkles.
Clothes racks also functioned as a way of displaying fashionable
pieces of clothing. They often formed part of the dowry and were
decorated with auspicious symbols to promote marital bliss and
longevity.

While a clothes rack was a common piece of furniture in the sleeping
quarters of both men and women, only a few hardwood examples
have survived. See a similar huanghuali clothes rack, with similar coin
design, illustrated by Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese
Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, vol.II, London, 1990, p.183,
E39. See also K.Mazurkewich, Chinese Furniture, Hong Kong, 2006,
p.156. A related mahogany clothes rack, Qing dynasty, is illustrated in
The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Furniture
of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, vol.2, Hong Kong, 2002, p.281,
no.237.

Compare also with a related huanghuali clothes rack, Qing dynasty,
which was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 28 May 2021, lot 2825.

For details of the charges payable in addition to the final Hammer Price of each Lot
42 | BONHAMS please refer to paragraphs 7 & 8 of the Notice to Bidders at the back of the catalogue.