A pair of Chinese huanghuali horseshoe-back armchairs, quanyi 

拍品描述

A pair of Chinese huanghuali horseshoe-back armchairs, quanyi Early Qing dynasty, 17th/18th century Each formed from elegantly figures huanghuali, with a sweeping crest rail terminating in outswept hooks above shaped spandrels, the backsplat finely carved in shallow relief with confronting chilong within an ogival medallion, the rear posts continuing to form the back legs below the rectangular frame above shaped beaded aprons and spandrels carved to the front with foliate scrolls, with plain beaded aprons and spandrels on the sides, all supported on four round legs joined by stretchers, each 60.5cm long x 45.7cm wide x 99.5cm high (2). 清早期十七/十八世紀 黃花梨靠背圈椅成對 The present pair of armchairs represents a pleasing example of the quanyi, or 'horseshoe-back chair', one of the most celebrated seat forms in the Chinese furniture tradition. The type traces its ancestry to the Song dynasty, where it was known as kaolaoyang. Its distinctive silhouette was inspired by seats of nearly identical form constructed from pliable lengths of bamboo, bent into a continuous 'U'-shape and bound together with natural fibres; it was the inherent flexibility of bamboo that made such a seamless, flowing outline possible. That the hardwood quanyi should retain so visible a debt to this modest material was itself meaningful: the elevation of a simple, lightweight vernacular form into an object of courtly refinement embodied the scholarly ideal of beauty achieved through restraint and technical mastery. The translation of this design into hardwood presented the cabinetmaker with considerable challenges. The seemingly effortless sweep of the continuous crest rail was, in a less pliable material, the result of elaborate joinery: each constituent member was cut to receive a tapered wooden pin, which, once driven home, held the whole assembly in rigid alignment. The margin for error was vanishingly small, since any deviation in the angle of a single joint would be compounded along the entire arc. A coating of lacquer was subsequently applied across the surface, concealing the joinery entirely and producing the seamless, flowing outline so characteristic of the form. Few seats in the Ming or Qing interior carried greater social weight than the quanyi. During the late Ming period the type acquired the imposing title of taishi yi, the 'Grand Tutor Chair', and its hierarchy within a room was widely understood: in banquet scenes of the period, it is invariably the round-backed armchair that falls to the most senior guest, whilst those of lesser rank are seated in square-backed examples. On ceremonial occasions these chairs were furnished with rich textile covers and a footstool; fitted with carrying poles, they became conveyances reserved for officials of the highest grades. As Craig Clunas has noted, they were regarded as 'markers of high status, seats of honour'; see C. Clunas, Chinese Furniture, London, 1988, p. 24. The carved decoration of the present pair - raised motifs on the splats and aprons whose angular scrollwork recalls the vocabulary of archaic bronzes - is consistent with an innovation of the late Ming and Kangxi period, and points to the antiquarian sensibilities that animated the taste of the scholarly elite in the late seventeenth century; see R. H. Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties, New York, 1971, pp. 86–87.

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