Page 58 - Christies Asia Week 2015 Chinese Works of Art

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

2033
A PAIR OF HUANGHUALI TAPERED ROUND-
CORNER CABINETS, YUANJIAOGUI

17TH-18TH CENTURY

Each has a protruding round-corner top

raised on slightly splayed legs of rounded-

square section. The rectangular single-panel

doors open from the removable center stile

to reveal the interior, above plain aprons and

spandrels at the front and sides.

45º in. (114.9 cm.) high, 27º in. (69.1 cm.)

wide, 15Ω in. (39.3 cm.) deep (2)

$150,000-200,000

PROVENANCE:

Sotheby’s New York, 28 May 1991, lot 351.

As suggested by Wang Shixiang,
Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture: Ming and
Early Qing Dynasties, vol. I, 1990, Hong Kong,
pp. 82 and 85, cabinets and stands with shelves
fall into four essential types: bookcases and open
shelf stands (jiage), cabinets with open shelves
(liangegui), round-corner tapered cabinets
(yuanjiaogui), and square-corner cabinets
(fangjiaogui). The present cabinet falls into the
third above- mentioned form, the round-corner
tapered cabinet or yuanjiaogui. Round-cornered
cabinets are usually splayed with round-edged
tops that protrude beyond the side posts, and
the present cabinet is no exception to this
standard. Interestingly, there is a difference in
the historical terminology between northern and
southern China whereby in the north the term
for cabinet, gui, was referred to as chu in the
south.

Several examples of this type are known. One
of slightly larger size (473 in. high) dated to the
17th century in the collection of The Minneapolis
Institute of Arts illustrated by Robert D. Jacobsen
and Nicholas Grindley in Classical Chinese
Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,
Minnesota, 1999, pp. 150-51, no. 52, where
the authors note that “round-corner, sloping
style cabinets, yuanjiaogui, were made in sizes
ranging from those suitable for table tops to
more imposing storage furniture over seven feet
in height.”

See another cabinet illustrated by Wang
Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture,
vol. II, Hong Kong, 1990, no. D22. See, also,
the slightly larger (48√ in. high) cabinet, sold at
Christie’s, Hong Kong, 28 November 2012, lot
2015. A larger pair of cabinets (72½ in. high)
illustrated by Wang Shixiang and Curtis Evarts,
Masterpieces from the Museum of Classical
Chinese Furniture, Chicago, 1995, pp. 130-31,
no. 61, later sold at Christie’s, New York, 19
September 1996, lot 19. A pair of slightly smaller
cabinets (37 in. high) was sold at Sotheby’s
Hong Kong, 7 April 2014, lot 3652.

明末/清十八世紀 黃花梨圓角櫃一對

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