Page 90 - 2020 October 8 HK Fine Classical Paintings

The panelled doors of this cabinet open to reveal fourteen
small drawers of different sizes. Square-corner cabinets
with multiple drawers are generally described as apothecary
cabinets and used for storing herbs and medicines, but could
have been used to store and sort a variety of objects, from
documents to writing materials, accessories and treasured
objects. The Ming dynasty intellectual and theorist on interior
design Li Yu (1611-1680?), in his Xian qing ou ji [Random notes
on times of leisure] from 1671, discusses the usefulness of
drawers and describes a multi-drawer cabinet designed for
scholars after pharmacists’ ‘hundred-eye cabinet’ (bai yan
chu).
Apothecary cabinets are unusual and extant examples are
more commonly known of smaller size; compare a smaller
cabinet lacking the doors, from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
Buffalo, New York, sold in our New York rooms, 19th/20th
March 2007, lot 303; and a much smaller one illustrated in
Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture Ming
and Early Qing Dynasties, Hong Kong, 1990, vol. II, pl. E21. See
also an apothecary chest, from the collection Robert Hatfield
Ellsworth, sold in our New York rooms, 30th March 2006,
lot 118; and another from the Jingguantang collection, sold
twice at Christie’s New York, 20th March 1997, lot 8, and 21st
September 2004, lot 15.
Apothecary cabinets are mentioned in the Lu Ban jing [Classics
of Lu Ban], the 15th century carpenter’s manual named
after the mythical patron of the carpenter’s craft. Here a
cabinet with twenty-four drawers arranged in tiers of seven is
described and named as yao chu.

雙開門內設十四屜，大小不一。方角多屜櫃通稱藥
箱，用於存放藥材，亦可收納文書、筆墨，乃至首
飾、珍玩等。明末清初文士李漁（1611-1680年）著《
閒情偶寄》，康熙十年（1671年）初刊，論及抽屜之
功用，名此類多屜櫃曰「百眼櫥」。
藥箱乃不多見，存世諸例多尺寸較小，比如一例，無
門，紐約州水牛城奧爾布賴特．諾克斯美術館舊藏，
售於紐約蘇富比2007年3月19/20日，編號303；再比一
例，尺寸更小，錄於王世襄，《明式家具研究》，香
港，1990年，卷II，圖版E21。另一藥箱，安思遠舊
藏，售於紐約蘇富比2006年3月30日，編號118；及一藥
箱，靜觀堂舊藏，兩度售於紐約佳士得，1997年3月20
日，編號8，及2004年9月21日，編號15。

十五世紀匠心集腋成裘，巧匠尊木工鼻祖魯班之名撰
《魯班經》，書中載有一藥箱，分七層二十四屜，曰
藥櫥。