Page 40 - Christies THE LAI FAMILY COLLECTION OF FINE CHINESE FURNITURE AND WORKS OF ART
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909 The abundance of bamboo made it popular
A RARE HUANGHUALI WAISTLESS among the lower classes, as a cost-effective and
BAMBOO-FORM SQUARE STOOL, more easily portable alternative to the more
FANGDENG luxurious huanghuali furniture. This rare stool
17TH CENTURY would have been commissioned by a wealthy
family, attracted to the humble origins of
The soft mat seat is within a square bamboo furniture, but seeking the luxury and
frame with double-beaded edge above status associated with precious huanghuali.
aprons framed by upright struts set into
round stretchers. The legs are carved in Compare a similar pair of bamboo-inspired
quadrilobed section and are joined by stools, dating to the late 16th-early 17th
plain stretchers at the base. century, in the Lu Ming Shi Collection, illustrated
19 in. (48.3 cm.) high, 22 in. (55.9 cm.) by Grace Wu Bruce, Living With Ming - The
square Lu Ming Shi Collection, Philippe De Backer,
2000, pp. 78-9, no. 13. A very similar stool, of
$60,000-80,000 comparable size, in the collection of Messrs.
Robert and William Drummond, is illustrated
PROVENANCE: by Gustav Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture,
Rutland and Tokyo, 1962, p. 97, fg. 77. See,
Cola Ma, Hong Kong, c. 1990. also, a pair sold at Christie’s New York, 18-19
Property from the Lai Family Collection. September 2014, lot 1124.
Refer to Ronald W. Longsdorf, “Chinese Bamboo
Furniture, Its Infuence on Hardwood Furniture
Design”, Orientations, January 1994, pp. 76-83,
where the author discusses the features of
bamboo furniture carried over to hardwood
forms, such as rounded members, ‘wrap-around’
stretchers, ‘stacked’ stretchers and the use of
closely placed vertical struts.
明末清初 黃花梨無束腰仿竹方櫈
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