Page 101 - Bonhams Asian Art London November 5, 2020

Much praised for their compact proportions, meiguiyi chairs are Meiguiyi armchairs also served as informal seats for women: this is
characterised by their top rail and arms curving smoothly into the visible on a woodblock print illustration to ‘Phoenix Seeks a Mate’
posts, imitating the flexibility of bamboo by means of complex mortise- Huang Qiu Feng, a drama dating to the Qing dynasty, which depicts
and-tenon joints. Moreover, the chairs are lightened by the use of three court ladies seated on low-back armchairs.
the humpback stretchers with pillar-shaped struts above the seat
frame. This design is thought to have been inspired by a low-back Smaller and less formal than the ‘yoke-back’ or ‘horseshoe-back’
armchair manufactured during the Song dynasty, an example of which armchair, low-back armchairs were often more ornately decorated,
is depicted in a twelfth century painting by Ma Gongxian (act.1131- displaying decorative frames and stretchers on the back panels, such
1162). Here Li Ao (d.ca. 844), a Confucian scholar, is seeking as the present examples. The back frame of the present examples
instruction from Yaoshan Weiyan (751-834), a Chan master, who is features an elaborate silhouette embellished with delicate designs of
seated on a low bamboo chair which resembles the construction of a angular spirals and perky chi dragons enclosing the yin/yang symbol,
meiguiyi, with the addition of a back rest. while the arch-shaped frame of the base displays a curling tendril motif
on the seat apron.
Low-back armchairs were also frequently depicted in paintings and
prints dating to the Ming and Qing dynasties. A ‘Literary Gathering in For a detailed discussion of low-back armchairs meiguiyi and their
the Apricot Garden’, painted by the court artist Xie Huan (act.1426- Song dynasty origin, see S.Handler, ‘Rose, Bamboo and the Low-Back
1452), features ‘The Three Yangs’ scholars of the Hanlin Academy Armchair’, in Chinese Furniture: Selected Articles from Orientations,
besides bamboo and hardwood low-back armchairs. 1984-1999, Hong Kong, 1999, pp.250-256. See also Wang Shixiang,
‘Development of Furniture Design and Construction from the Song to
the Ming’, ibid., p.44.

A related pair of huanghuali low-back chairs, early 18th century, was
sold at Sotheby’s New York, 16 September 2009, lot 9.