Page 204 - Bonhams FINE CHINESE ART London November 2 2021

365 TP Y
A PAIR OF HUANGHUALI ‘MEDITATION’ CHAIRS, CHANYI
Each with an elegant plain frame forming a low back and slender arms
supported at right angles on straight front posts, the large hard-mat
square seat above humpback stretchers with pillar-shaped struts.
86cm high x 74cm wide x 74cm deep (2).
£20,000 - 30,000
CNY180,000 - 270,000

黃花梨禪椅一對

Provenance: a distinguished European private collection

來源：歐洲顯赫私人收藏

Notable for their understated elegance conveyed by their linear beauty Because of their deep seat and horizontal back rails, ‘meditation’ chairs
and geometric simplicity, the present chairs are clearly inspired by made it difficult to sit comfortably on them, therefore, they were often
an earlier prototype in the Ming dynasty. Chairs of similar form had used with separate backrests. In addition, judging from the contexts in
been used since the sixth century. The low-back armchair serving which they were depicted, these chairs could be used in religious as
as seat for the abbot or high prelate depicted on a mid-sixth century well as secular contexts. See a woodblock illustration to ‘Efficaceous
stele on the wall of a Buddhist cave in Dunhuang, for example, has a Charms from the Tianzhu’ Tianzhu lingqian, and ‘Ximen Encounters a
similar design to the present chairs, except for the higher back; see Barbarian Monk’, a woodblock illustration to ‘The Plum in the Golden
S.Handler, The Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Vase, dating to the Ming dynasty, depicting a scholar meditating
Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992, p.14, fig.1.6. Surviving literature in his garden in the lotus position, illustrated by S.Handler, Austere
dating from the sixth century refers to these ‘meditation’ chairs as Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Berkeley and Los Angeles,
‘woven seats’ shengchuang or shengzuo. According to the ‘Record 1992, p.33, figs.2.8 and 2.9.
of Buddhist Monasteries’, completed in AD 547, Buddhist monks
practiced stillness, eating the wind and submitting to the Way as they
sat cross-legged on rope seats shengzuo, in quiet meditation rooms
nestled amidst luxurious gardens containing exotic fruit trees and
fragrant azaleas; see W.J.F.Jenner, Memories of Loyang, Yang Hsuan-
chich and the Lost Capital’, Oxford, 1981, pp.493-534. A devotional
handscroll of Buddhist images by Zhang Shengwen, executed
between AD 1173 and 1176, depicts Bodhidharma, the first patriarch
of the the Chinese Chan Buddhist sect, seated on a similarly-shaped
chair but fashioned from gnarled branches.

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