Chinese furniture

Ming Imperial table in carved lacquer

Canopy bed, late 19th or early 20th century

Furniture made during the Liao Dynasty, excavated from the underground palace in Tian Kai Ta, in Fangshan District of Beijing

Low-back armchair, late 16th-18th century AD, huanghuali rosewood

A Ming era Ta couch from the Shanghai Museum

The forms of Chinese furniture evolved along three distinct lineages which dates back to 1000 BC, based on frame and panel, yoke and rack (based on post and rail seen in architecture) and bamboo construction techniques. Chinese home furniture evolved independently of Western furniture into many similar forms including chairs, tables, stools, cabinets, beds and sofas.

Cultural context

What is now considered the Chinese aesthetic had its origins in China as far back as 1500-1000 BC. The furniture present in some of the artwork from that early period shows woven mats on elevated floors, sometimes accompanied by arm rests, providing seating accompanied by low tables. In this early period both unadorned and intricately engraved and painted pieces were already developing.

Buddhism, entering China around AD 200, brought with it the idea of (the Buddha) sitting upon a raised platform instead of simply mats. The platform was adopted as an honorific seat for special guests and dignitaries or officials. Longer versions were then used for reclining as well, which eventually evolved into the bed and daybed. Taller versions evolved into higher tables as well. The folding stool also proliferated similarly, after it was adapted from designs developed by nomadic tribes to the North and West, who used them for both their convenience and light weight in many applications such as mounting horses. Later, woven hourglass-shaped stools evolved; a design still in use today throughout China.

Some of the styles now widely regarded as Chinese began appearing more prominently in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). It is here that evidence of early versions of the round and yoke back chairs are found, generally used by the elite. By the next two Dynasties (the Northern and Southern Song) the use of varying types of furniture, including chairs, benches, and stools was common throughout Chinese society. Two particular developments were recessed legs and waisted tables. Newer and more complex designs were generally limited to official and higher class use.

It was from this basis that more modern Chinese furniture developed its distinguishing characteristics. Use of thick lacquer finish and detailed engravings and paintings as well as pragmatic design elements would continue to flourish. Significant foreign design influence would not be felt until increased contact with the West began in the 19th century, due to efforts on the part of the ruling elite to limit trade.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties previous bans on imports were lifted, allowing for larger quantities and varieties of woods to flood in from other parts of Asia. The use of denser wood led to much finer work, including more elaborate joinery. A Ming Imperial table entirely covered in carved lacquer, now in London, is one of the finest survivals of the period.

Four categories

Chinese furniture traditionally consisted of four distinct categories, all formed by the mid Qing dynasty, but each with its own unique characteristics.

• Beijing category (京式家具): characterized by its simple build, directly developed from Ming Dynasty furnitures.
• Guangzhou category (广式家具): incorporating western influence, formed in the 19th century. Characterized by the adoptation of the decrorative mounting of marble and the shells of shellfish.
• Shanghai category (海式家具): characterized by its decrorative sculpture and sculptured paint.
• Suzhou category (苏式家具): Opposite to the Beijing category, characterized by its elaborate decoration, developed from early Qing Dynasty furnitures.

Material

Classic Chinese furniture is typically made of a class of hardwoods, known collectively as "rosewood" (紅木, literally "red wood"). These woods are denser than water, fine grained, and high in oils and resins. These properties make them dimensionally stable, hardwearing, rot and insect resistant, and when new, highly fragrant. The density and toughness of the wood also allows furniture to be built without the use of glue and nail, but rather constructed from jointery and doweling alone. According to the Chinese industry standards the woods are grouped into eight classes:

Name	Chinese	Plant Genus	Description
Huali wood	花黎木	Pterocarpus	Woods typically from P. cambodianus, P. dalbergioides, P. erinaceus, P. indicus, P. macarocarpus, P. pedatus, and P. marsupium. This wood is known commercially in the West as "padauk".
Zitan wood	紫檀木	Dalbergia	Woods from Dalbergia nigra, a burgendy-black wood that oxidizes into a purple-black colour. Highly valued
Hong suanzhi wood	紅酸枝木		Reddish coloured woods that have a sour/acrid smell when freshly cut. The woods are typically from D. bariensis, D. cearensis, D. ochinchinensis, D. frulescensvar, D. granadillo, D. oliveri, D. retusa
Hei suanzhi wood	黑酸枝木		Dark coloured woods that have a sour/acrid smell when freshly cut. The woods are typically from D. cultrate, D. fusca, D. latifolia, D. louvelii, D. melanoxylon, D. nigra, D. spruceana, and D. stevensonii
Xiangzhi wood	香枝木		The wood from Dalbergia odorifera and known commonly by the name "Huanghua li" (黄花梨, literally yellow flowered pear) or "Jiangxiang huangtan" (降香黄檀, literally Fragrant yellow hardwood). This is one of the most valued and traditionally used hardwoods for Chinese furniture before its overharvesting from Chinese domestic sources.
Wu/Yinchen wood	烏木 / 陰沉木	Diospyros	Typically refers to woods from Diospyros crassiflora, Diospyros ebenum, Diospyros pilosanthera, and D. poncei, which are known as ebony in the west. Name is sometimes mistaken applied to Dalbergia nigra.
Tiaowen wu wood	條紋烏木		Woods from trees of genus Diospyros with vivid dark and light striations. Principally Diospyros blancoi, Diospyros celebica and Diospyros melanoxylon.
Jichi wood	雞翅木	Millettia and Other genus	Woods which have a finely patterned, high contrast grain that is similar to the feathers of certain birds, such as chickens and partridges. The wood is taken typically from Millettia laurentii (非洲崖豆木), Millettia leucantha (白花崖豆木), Ormosia hosiei(相思木), and either Senna siamea or Mesua ferrea (鐵力木) but also from a wide variety of genus and species including, Terminalia tomentosa, Diplotropis purpurea, Hymenolobium excelsum, Andira inermis, and Steculit oblonga.

Furniture and carving made from these woods are typically referred to, in the market, as "hongmu furniture" (紅木家具, literally "rosewood furniture"). Due to overlogging for the said furniture, most of the species are either threatened or endangered

Construction

Chinese furniture in Taipei's Zhongshan Building

Construction of traditional wooden Chinese furniture is based primarily of solid wood pieces connected solely using woodworking joints, and rarely using glue or metallic nails. The reason was that nails and glues used did not stand up well to the vastly fluctuating temperatures and humid weather conditions in most of Central and South-East Asia. As well, the highly oily and resinous woods used in Chinese furniture do not glue well, even when pre-cleaned with modern industrial solvents.

Platform construction is based on box designs and uses frame-and-panel construction in simple form during earlier periods evolving into more and more modified forms in later periods. While earlier pieces show full frame-and-panel construction techniques, different parts of the construction were modified through the centuries to produce diverse looking pieces which still share the same basic construction. First the panel, originally complete, is subject to cut-out sections, followed by further reduction to what may appear to be simply decorative brackets. Further refinement of the same pattern lead the shape of the decorative brackets being incorporated into the shape of the surrounding frame and simultaneously the two mitered vertical pieces comprising a corner become one solid piece. Pieces start to have small cross-pieces attached to the bottom of the feet rather than a frame that is equal on all sides and finally, with evolution of the complex woodworking joints that allow it, the cross-pieces are removed entirely, leaving a modern table with 3-way mitered corners. Unlike European-derived styles, table designs based on this style will nearly always contain a frame-in-panel top, the panel serving as the tabletop center and the frame sometimes also serving as what would be rails on a European table. Cabinets in this style have a top that does not protrude beyond the sides or front. The critical element in almost all pieces of this type is the mitered joints, especially the 3-way mitered joining of the leg and two horizontal pieces at each corner.

The Yoke and Rack construction differs critically in the way that the legs of the piece are joined to the horizontal portion (be it tabletop, seat or cabinet carcass) using a type of wedged mortise-and-tenon joint where the end grain of the leg is visible as a circle in the frame of the tabletop. The cross-pieces (stretchers in the western equivalent) are joined through mortise-and-tenon joinery as well. The legs and stretchers are commonly round rather than square or curvilinear. The simplest pieces are simply four splayed legs attached to a solid top, but more complicated pieces contain decorative brackets, drawers and metal latches. Cabinets in this style typically have an overhanging top similar to western-style cabinetry.

Bamboo construction style, although historically rooted in pieces made from bamboo, later saw many pieces made from hardwood with patterning to imitate the look of bamboo, or simply in the style of previous pieces made from bamboo. The construction is more similar to the Yoke and Rack style with some apparent crossover.

See also

• Gustav Ecke

References

• Ecke, Gustav (1986). Chinese domestic furniture in photographs and measured drawings. Dover Publications. ISBN 0486251713. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Handler, Sarah (2001). Austere luminosity of Chinese classical furniture. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520214846. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Classical Chinese Furniture: Information Cybercenter for the Collector and Scholar. Includes images of datable furniture, explanations of joinery and construction, a lengthy bibliographical section.