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Evolving Styles

For centuries the Chinese, like the Japanese, had a mat culture. Resting, socializing and eating all occurred while kneeling, sitting cross-legged or reclining on woven mats on the ground surrounded by basic utensils and a handful of low-level furnishings. Chinese furniture, as we know it today, did not come into being until the Tang dynasty (AD 618–906). By the beginning of the Northern Song dynasty (AD 960–1127), high-level officials had graduated to tables and chairs. The new culture of sitting reached all levels of society by the end of the dynasty. By this time, too, the designs and techniques of making furniture had become established, and owning furniture was no longer the prerogative of the privileged few.

How Chinese furniture evolved is still a mystery. What we know is that over 2000 years ago, the ancients began constructing platforms to raise themselves off the cold earthen floors. The oldest known piece of furniture is a black lacquered bed found during the 1957 excavation of a tomb in Xinyang, Henan province, that dates back to the Warring States period (475 BC–AD 221). Scholars speculate that this intricately carved bed, made for a warlord of the southern kingdom of Chu, was not only used for sleeping but doubled as a ceremonial platform from which he ruled.

Fig. 8 “Palace Women,” attributed to Leng Mei, a court artist living in Emperor Kangxi’s reign during the Qing dynasty (AD 1644–1911), and active in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The painting depicts a southern official’s armchair and a square Eight Immortals table. Photo courtesy National Palace Museum of Taipei.

Fig. 9 Woodblock print of an informal scene of three people seated on drum-shaped stools made of rattan or draped in fabric around a square Eight Immortals table, from The Story of Hong Fu, published in the Wanli period (AD 1572–1620). Photo courtesy Grace Wu Bruce.

Fig. 10 Woodblock print of men on round waisted stools eating at a side table in a house of pleasure, from a chapter in the drama A Pair of Fishes, published in the Wanli period (AD 1572–1620). Photo courtesy Grace Wu Bruce.

Fig. 11 Folding yoke-back chair made of softwood and coated in a dark lacquer, seventeenth century. This chair—one of a pair—was once adorned with red lacquer ornamentation bearing writhing dragons. The opened carved panel at the top of the splat is a ruyi-shaped medallion. The decoration on the bottom of the splat is a kunmen-shaped opening. When folded, this chair measures only 7½ inches (19 cm) wide. Photo courtesy Robert A. Piccus.

Fig. 12 Folding stool, huanghuali, ca. early eighteenth century. Photo courtesy Robert A. Piccus.

Fig. 13 The hinge at the junction of the crossed legs is called a baitong. These hinges are both decorative and provide stability for the folding stool. Photo courtesy Robert A. Piccus.

Fig. 14 During the Song dynasty, a backrest was added to the folding stool, creating one of the first forms of chair. Collection of Cola Ma.

Bas-reliefs and murals found in Han tombs in Henan province showing cross-legged men on low couches or ta was further proof that raised platforms existed back then. These seats were most likely an adaptation of the brick platform known as the kang, which was warmed by flues and covered with thick mats and rugs to serve as a bed in cold weather.

The evolution from mat to chair did not occur overnight. There were many transitional forms of seating customs. Floor poses ranged from kneeling to a cross-legged position. Even when people took to elevated platforms, they reclined on them as if they were still seated on the ground. It took many centuries before people sat upright in their seats with their legs extended to the floor.

The history of furniture saw two parallel tracks of development. The prototype, which appeared sometime during the reign of Han Lingdi (AD 168–188), may have been borrowed from foreigners. This form of transportable stool or day bed was called a huchuang or barbarian bed, and it became a symbol of power. The oversized stool was simple: the front and back legs were hinged where they cross, and a seat was created by threading a rope across the top stretchers (Figs.12, 13). The sheer act of raised seating was designed to convey an impression of authority among underlings, particularly on the battlefield where it was used by commanders. The huchuang, however, was eventually domesticated and popularized, and used by prince and peddler alike. Once folded, it was easy to sling across a shoulder (Figs. 11, 14). By the Song dynasty (AD 960–1279), a backrest was added to the simple stool, creating a version of what we know as the British deck chair. These chairs were often constructed from light softwood and then lacquered. The curve of the back splat is nicely aligned with the rear stiles and legs, which are fashioned from the same piece of wood. Other versions of this chair emerged, including a folding settee that could seat three persons, and folding chairs with arms—the most regal being the folding horseshoe chair (Fig. 15).

The etymology of the huchuang is fuzzy. It is unclear just who the so-called “barbarians” were. It is unlikely they came from the Mongolian hordes in the north because there is no evidence that they used such seats. Instead, scholars speculate that the word “barbarian” was simply a catch-all term to describe any foreigner. Thus, the chair could have been inspired by the collapsible chairs of India, which were introduced along with Buddhism, or imported by Silk Road traders originally from Syria. The spread of Buddhism throughout the region during the Northern and Southern dynasties (AD 420–588) brought with it a variety of seats, including a straw-woven hourglass-shaped stool. In a cave painting dated to the Northern Wei period (AD 470–93), a teacher is perched on one such seat along with his students. Curtis Evarts speculates that the pedestal might have been inspired by the Greek pedestal carried by traders along the Silk Route. Ceremonial basins/braziers attributed to monks around 1189 were also incorporated into daily life.

A more sophisticated form of chair, known as the rigid frame chair or yi, appeared sometime during the Tang dynasty (AD 618–906). It is obvious from the archeological records that the evolution from low furniture to high was a slow, progressive one. But something finally crystallized during the Tang dynasty. As the popularity of Buddhism rose, the clashes that were prevalent during the Northern Wei dynasty waned. As peace took root, people had more time to spend innovating and tweaking luxury items such as furniture.

Fig. 15 Folding horseshoe-back armchair, huanghuali, late sixteenth to early seventeenth century. There are fewer than twenty published examples of Ming folding chairs in huanghuali wood. The inset openwork panel is carved with a hornless dragon within a ruyi-shaped medallion. The central panel features the mystical beast qilin in a bed of clouds and trees. Yellow brass reinforces the joints. Collection of Dr S.Y.Yip. Photo courtesy Grace Wu Bruce.

Fig. 16 The folding chair gave rise to other forms of furniture such as the table.

Fig. 17 The rigid frame chair or yi, like this side chair with an elongated back, was developed sometime during the Tang dynasty. Photo courtesy Christopher Cooke.

The word yi, which is derived from the Chinese character “to lean,” came into use in the tenth century. From the very beginning, the purpose of the yi was to facilitate leisurely contemplation. Although it may have been partly inspired by the barbarian chair, its frame more closely resembles chairs used in Byzantine Europe. Scholars speculate that officials of the outward-looking Tang courts, inspired by Egyptian and Roman customs, simply desired a more comfortable lounge chair for the garden.

What started as an indulgence of the élite was quickly popularized. The Japanese monk Ennin, who traveled in China between AD 838 and 847, noted in his diary the use of chairs by high-level officials. It was probably not long after his visit that wealthy merchants also began commissioning them.

By the tenth century, a painting entitled “Night Revels of Han Xizai” by Gu Hong Zhong shows guests sitting upon U-shaped couch beds surrounded with decorative railings, yoke-back chairs, high recessed-leg tables and standing screens. This was the first glimpse into the evolving world of Chinese furniture that would eventually morph into the armchairs, rose chairs and side tables which became fashionable at the beginning of the Song dynasty (Figs. 16, 17). This painting is also the first pictorial evidence that high chairs and tables were used by prominent statesmen in their fashionable homes during the early Song dynasty. For the Chinese upper crust, furniture was now in vogue. It was nothing short of a domestic revolution.

The Song style was dictated by functionality. Early examples followed architectural principles based on post-and-beam construction. Stability was key, and what developed was a brilliant form of joinery known as the traditional mortise-and-tenon. This form of joinery is what distinguishes Chinese furniture from other Western precepts (Fig. 18).

Over time, however, zealous craftsmanship surpassed utilitarian intent. Woodblock prints from the eleventh century depict simple furniture showing true artistic enterprise. One basic square table has sturdy legs crafted to join the table top in a graceful arc and meet the ground as a delicate horse hoof-shaped foot.

The Song fashion was elegant but deceptively simple. Day beds and painting tables, such as the one featured in Liu Sung-nien’s painting “Preparing Tea” (Fig. 19), initially retained a box-like platform shape common during the Tang dynasty. Innovation soon crept in. Some of the basic shapes that evolved include decorative waisted tables and scepter-shaped table legs as shown in “Morning Toilette in the Women’s Quarters,” attributed to Wang Shen (AD 1036–88) (Fig. 22). Other classic elements that can be traced back to this era include the round-legged recessed-leg table, curved humpback stretchers and square feet as seen in the Qing-dynasty painting “Palace Women” (Fig. 8, and Figs. 20, 21).

Not surprisingly, interior design became a preoccupation among the arbiters of taste—the scholarly class. As Lina Lin writes in the Taipei Museum catalogue Special Exhibition of Furniture in Paintings, furniture was freely adapted and arranged for individual needs during the Song dynasty.

The literati of the Yuan (AD 1279–1368) and Ming dynasties (AD 1368–1644) continued to build on the earlier Song traditions, but during the Ming era furniture handicraft reached new heights. The establishment of the new Imperial Palace in Beijing (AD 1402–23) led to the re-establishment of imperial workshops and the flourishing of high-quality products, including the carved altar table at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Whereas the Song scholarly class paid homage to decorative lacquer and curves, puritan successors developed a more austere aesthetic. The arbiters of taste preferred clean lines and silhouettes, and placed greater emphasis on the grain patterns of hardwoods such as huanghuali, a type of tropical rosewood now extinct.

There is consensus among scholars that Chinese furniture reached its apex between the Jiajing and Kangxi periods (AD 1522–1662) when nobles sought to acquire luxury goods, including furniture, illustrated books and calligraphy. During this time, craftsmen perfected minimalism by using the least amount of material to obtain both maximum function and aesthetic pleasure. Such purity of line, however, required discipline. Furniture makers during this period adhered to rigid rules governing proportion and size. These codes were diligently recorded in the fifteenth-century text, Lu Ban Jing. The book is essentially a construction manual compiled by three government officials who were in charge of recruiting artisans for the emperor’s projects. Academics who have tried to make furniture by following the manual like a cookbook have failed. Scholars such as Craig Clunas speculate that the book is a bible, not a blueprint, reflecting the spirit with which furniture should be constructed. That said, it is clear that during various eras carpenters organized themselves into guilds. One such guild, the Sacred Society of Lu Ban, was established in the mid-1800s. Some of the best carpenters, including Huang De Ping who recently retired from Cola Ma’s Tianjin workshop, say they still follow the directives taught by their fathers and grandfathers who apprenticed under the Lu Ban guild.

Fig. 18 An original painting platform like the one depicted in “Preparing Tea” (Fig. 19) was the possible prototype of the classical tables found in paintings and wood-block prints dating to the Song dynasty. This diagram shows the evolution from Tang table to the more common scepter-shaped and cabriole-shaped legs found in the Song dynasty. Both the apron and the legs were reshaped in later centuries. The cusped openings of the Tang-style table became a simple curvilinear apron until the apron itself eventually straightened out. The ground stretchers joining the legs for stability were eventually phased out and their vestige was the scepter-shaped feet. Eventually, even the scepter design transmuted either into horse hoof feet that curve inwards or the S-shaped cabriole feet that curve outwards.

Fig. 19 “Preparing Tea.”This painting is attributed to Liu Sung-nien (AD 1174–1224). In the Tang dynasty (AD 618–906), tea drinking was popular at court, at literary gatherings and at temples. Two attendants are seen preparing tea while a monk sits at a Tang-style painting table with cusped openings, stretchers and legs slightly curved in the shape of scepters. Next to the painting platform is a recessed-leg table with plain spandrels and round legs. Horizontal braces are also used to stabilize the table. According to Lina Lin in her Taipei Museum catalogue, Special Exhibition of Furniture in Paintings, the purpose of the small spandrels and apron is to increase the strength of the mitered tongue-and-groove joints. Photo courtesy National Palace Museum of Taipei.

Fig. 20 Table built in a traditional style with stretchers extending across the length and width, ca. fifteenth century, Shanxi province. This style, with its scepter-shaped feet, dates back to the Song dynasty. By the end of the Ming dynasty, the use of long stretchers between the legs disappeared as joinery techniques improved. The joinery at the top, allowing for corner indentations, is unusual. This is a good example of a softwood—huaimu (locust)—that is preserved in part due to its high density. Photo courtesy Cola Ma.

Fig. 21 Painting table, zuomu (oak), Shanxi province. The table has been stabilized by floor stretchers. The legs are slightly bulging and the corners are indented, much like the archaic tables from the Song and Yuan dynasties. Photo courtesy Cola Ma.

Fig. 22 “Morning Toilette in the Women’s Quarters,” attributed to Wang Shen (AD 1036–88). The long lacquered table has no braces and has scepter-shaped legs that were popular during the Song dynasty. A small bed screen with marble inlay is placed on the sleeping platform behind the standing woman.

While not a perfect recipe, the laws governing carpentry as described in this ancient text are rooted in ritual and superstition. There were auspicious days to fell trees or lay foundations, as well as special prayers, lucky charms and tricks to neutralize sorcery. Certain measurements were deemed favorable. For example, a table 1 chi 6 cun (which represents 1½ feet in Chinese measurement and is today’s standard’s half meter) wide, corresponds to the measurement symbols that represent “white” and “wealth.” Some increments represent good, while others bring about illness and harm. Bound by such rigid doctrine, carpenters were rather exacting with their rulers.

While the Lu Ban was obviously intended as an architectural guide, roughly one-third of its text is devoted to furniture design. The techniques used to create the angles, curves and joinery to build chairs and tables were adapted and refined from the principles applied to construct halls and homes. Even the decorative motifs found on partitions and banisters are replicated on table spandrels and chair panels. The origins of the Lu Ban are unknown, but scholars speculate that the section on furniture may have been supplied by the foreman of a large carpentry factory who kept an inventory of measurements. The existence of large production centers might explain why furniture proportions deviated little and standardization prevailed.

The center of production was Beijing, where the Imperial Palace workshops were situated. The provinces of Guangdong and Jiangnan (the region which now comprises Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai) were also major centers of furniture production, in particular the cities of Guangzhou and Suzhou. Suzhou was considered the cultural capital of China in dynastic times. It flourished as a trading and silk center in the early sixth century, but reached its apogee during the Ming and early Qing. While it was linked with the capital through the Grand Canal, it was far enough away from the political epicenter to be less conservative. Many officials and scholars purchased and planned their garden-residences here as retreats for their retirement years.

Although each region favored different styles, there was an enormous amount of cross-pollination among carpenters, which explains the systematization of measurements and styles during the Ming era. This has been attributed to the strict taxation scheme of the early Ming emperors, who regularly called upon the services of carpenters in lieu of payment of taxes. Tradition dictated that carpenters living in the capital were required to work in the palace workshop ten days each month, while those from other parts of the country worked three months every three years. This excessive form of tax was relaxed by the mid-fifteenth century, as artisans paid tax rather than serve time.

Carpenters in the region retained a relationship with the imperial workshops even after the Manchurian invaders ousted the Han Chinese and formed the Qing dynasty in 1644. For example, during the Qianlong era (AD 1736–96), a satellite workshop of the Imperial Palace opened in Guangzhou in order to make Southern-style furniture for the emperor.

Fig. 23 The main hall of the Feng family residence in Lang-zhong, northeastern Sichuan province, decorated as it would have been in the early twentieth century when the family occupied it.

Fig. 24 Kang table with flush-side corners and vigorous horseshoe feet more typical of the Ming dynasty, red lacquer on jumu (southern elm), eighteenth century. Photo courtesy Albert Chan.

Fig. 25 During the Qing dynasty, carpenters designed higher and squarer feet.

Fig. 26 Classical simianping (four sides flat) side table or qin table, the legs terminating in inverted ruyi which are often seen in Ming paintings but are rarely found in furniture, ca. seventeenth century, Shanxi province. The frame is made of huaimu (locust) and the top panel is of wutong wood, a type usually reserved for the production of musical instruments. This means the table was probably used as a stand to play music. Photo courtesy Cola Ma.

Fig. 27 This side table with humpback stretchers is more representative of later Ming-style furniture with the vigorous low hoof and flat apron. Photo courtesy Charles Wong.

Fig. 28 Square-corner cabinet, yumu (northern elm), eighteenth century, Shanxi province. The decorative door panels, which are typical of the mid-to late eighteenth century, feature a coin-patterned lattice design. The large horizontal panel of this cabinet features five bats in clouds carved in relief, while the base apron is dressed with dragons and a longevity character. Collection of Cola Ma.

Fig. 29 Window screen with animal motifs, including bats, changmu (camphor), nineteenth century, Hubei province. Photo courtesy Oi Ling Chiang.

Fig. 30 Detail of carving. Photo courtesy Andy Hei.

Throughout the centuries, stylistic innovation occurred gradually. The horse hoof evolved from a vigorous low foot in the sixteenth century to a high, square-shaped one in the nineteenth century; the curvilinear aprons of the early Ming were exchanged for straighter aprons, and propitious symbols such as the dragon became more elongated, heavier and less animated (Figs. 24–27).

The most radical style change, however, occurred in the mid-Qing dynasty when the Emperor Qianlong’s taste for ornate carvings percolated from the imperial workshops in Beijing out to the regions (Fig. 28). As Curtis Evarts points out, Qianlong’s taste for the ornate did not revolutionize furniture styles throughout the kingdom, but added another dimension to traditional styles.

Three hundred years later, the stylistic changes introduced by the Qing rulers were considered a step backwards by Western collectors. It was felt that the natural fluidity of line espoused by the Ming élite was sacrificed on the altar of symbolic decoration. Fussy carvings of dragons, qilin and bats interfered with the profile (Figs. 29, 30). In addition, furniture became weightier, aprons larger, curves tighter, and the back splats on chairs more vertical. The new aesthetic, driven by the fashion epicenter in Beijing, was embraced by workshops in Guangzhou and Suzhou. Only in the poorer provinces which remained rooted in old traditions, such as Shanxi, did some archaic forms survive (Fig. 33).

The Qing carpenters employed by the imperial workshops were technical virtuosos. Rather than making simple mortise-and-tenon joints, they indulged themselves by making complex joinery such as double miter, tortoise and tenon joints. According to Hong Kong’s Albert Chan, the Qing joints were not necessarily more stable than the early Ming ones, but were certainly more creative.

Some emperors also took a personal interest in design. The eclectic Qianlong emperor played an active part in furniture manufacture to the point of dictating precise dimensions and styles, says Beijing scholar Tian Jiaqing. In particular, he revived the archaic jade carving motifs called fanggu and applied them to furniture. He also embraced the Guangdong style, which favored Dali (dream stone) marble from Yunnan province, later to become a fashionable inlay in ornate furniture. Some pieces inadvertently lost their functionality because they were so highly decorated (Fig. 32). The Qing style lent itself more to pomp and circumstance than quiet study and contemplation. It was a reflection of the philosophical shift within the power élite.

Fig. 31 Hongmu (blackwood) chairs inspired by Michael Thonet’s famous bistro-style chair, Shanghai. These chairs were obviously made by copying European catalogues. Collection of Hannah Chiang.

Fig. 32 Kang table, zitan, eighteenth century, North China. This exhibits a court style from the mid-Qing period featuring chi dragons and angular scrolled hoofs. The relief carving also simulates designs found in archaic jades. Photo courtesy Peter Chan.

Fig. 33 Painting table in a typical Qianlong style with carved dragons and longevity symbols, zitan, eighteenth century. Possibly made in a Beijing city workshop but crafted by a Guangdong woodworker. The condition is excellent, indicating that the piece was once owned by a very wealthy or royal family over a long period of time. Photo courtesy Andy Hei.

As the Manchurian epoch came to an end in 1911, the era of the devoted craftsman wound down. The unstable political situation that followed the exile of Sun Yat Sen, the Japanese invasion and World War II all combined to stifle artisans. There were some pockets of innovative design. In Shanghai, the Art Deco scene was alive and well, and in Canton workshops churned out export furniture (Fig. 31).

As the quality of Chinese handicraft diminished, international appreciation of the classical forms grew. During the 1930s and 1940s, Westerners living in Beijing, who were influenced by Bauhaus styles, started researching and collecting classical Ming furniture. The most influential of these was Gustav Ecke who was hired, in 1923, as a professor of European philosophy at Amoy University in Fujian province. Inspired by collector Deng Yizhe, Ecke’s own passion grew and in 1930, after moving from Beijing to teach at Furen University, he began to collect. Ecke directed his gaze to Ming-dynasty huanghuali hardwood pieces, such as a testered bedstead and the high-standing coffer table his wife still owns. Ming furniture was not widely collected at the time, and even scholars who obtained pieces showed little interest in researching furniture. Ecke and friends like Laurence Sickman traveled around looking for attractive pieces. At one point, Ecke and his wife Tseng Yuhe, a painter and art historian, owned well over thirty pieces of Ming, as well as many pieces of export furniture from the early Qing.

In the 1940s, Ecke disassembled his collection of furniture to make precise measurements and drawings with the help of Yang Yao, and published a paper called “Chinese Domestic Furniture.” During the Cultural Revolution, the measurements and drawings were kept under the bed of Chen Zengbi, a student of Yang Yao, a renowned academic. Their work was eventually published as a book and today remains an important reference for authentication (Fig. 34).

Before the Communists seized power in 1949, much of the furniture owned by foreigners was shipped out. Gustav Ecke was not so lucky. “The university gave us one year’s salary and told us we had to make our own way out,” says his wife Tseng. “We couldn’t pack everything.” Their priority was forty-five crates of books. “We had the finest library on Chinese art.” After shipping out the books, there was no money left to ship out the furniture. Instead, they “deposited” one-third of their collection with the British Embassy, one-third with the American embassy and one-third with Yang Yao.

In 1949 they settled in Hawaii where Ecke taught Asian art. Eventually, the couple received a letter from Lionel Lamb, a former British attaché in China, to say that Ecke’s abandoned furniture was still in the embassy, and that he could ship it out with his own possessions if Ecke sold them to him. Later, Ecke bought back nine pieces of furniture and had them shipped from Switzerland. Two more pieces eventually found their way back to Ecke, but most of it was simply stolen, and has since made its way into collections around the world. “If I was greedy, I could go and claim them as mine,” says Tseng.

Ecke’s contemporaries, academics like Laurence Sickman (who collected for the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas city) and George Kates, managed to get out a lot of their furniture. Part of Kates’ collection was given to the Brooklyn Museum, and the rest was sold in 1955.

For decades, as Communist China remained closed, “the conventional wisdom was that there was no more furniture left in China except what was saved by the expats,” says collector Robert Piccus. He soon learned otherwise. This erroneous assumption was based on the fact that until the 1980s the only objects coming out of China were small scholarly objects. The original Beijing antique shops—Rong Xing Xiang, Yunbao Zhai and Lu Ban Guan—were closed, and very little was coming out of state-operated agencies. As Piccus later surmised, “At the time it seemed a mystery as to why it was possible to buy huanghuali brush pots in considerable quantity but not furniture.” The answer was simple. There was still plenty of furniture squirreled away in China, it was just too difficult to get it out of the country. The Chinese government stopped issuing export licenses between 1951 and 1971, and even when some trade did resume there were tremendous hurdles in physically transporting furniture across the country. As a result, some types of furniture, including the horseshoe-back reclining armchair, were not represented in any major institutional collection prior to 1980. China’s new economic policy in the late 1970s, and the work of local scholar Wang Shixiang, changed that perception. The resumption of trade to the outside world was like the bursting of a dam. Secret caches began flooding out—first Ming furniture made of tieli wood, followed by huanghuali. As the economic policy kicked into gear, “the border became a sieve for antiquities,” says Piccus. The first pieces to surface on Hong Kong’s famous antiques strip, “Cat Street,” were old tieli pieces from the south. Piccus recalls paying HK$8,000 for a tieli side table in 1982. To his surprise and amazement, great huanghuali and zitan specimens followed (Fig. 37).

At first, only a handful of dealers and collectors knew the worth of these pieces, but the market was further stimulated when Wang’s seminal book, Classic Chinese Furniture, was published in 1986. The book, together with Wang’s personal collection, lent legitimacy to the notion that the old Chinese furniture within the country was indeed valuable. It also served as the ultimate reference guide.

The first wave of buyers sourced items from the government-run storehouses. Hong Kong-based Hei Hung Lu ventured into China on buying trips as early as 1972, but was only able to acquire furniture starting 1976. For the next decade, he bought mostly Qing-dynasty pieces from two enormous warehouses: the Peking Arts & Crafts Importing and Exporting Company and the China National Arts & Crafts Import and Export Company in Beijing.

In the early 1980s, Hannah Chiang and his mother started buying furniture from second-hand shops in Guangzhou, such as Rong Wah, which sold secondhand furniture. The store came under the authority of the Cultural Relics Bureau. Chiang would buy from these shops, but had to arrange an export license through the state-run Guangdong Antique Shop for a service fee. Initially, he bought black-wood furniture—all that the shops had in stock. Later the stores were able to source from “runners,” people who would travel to remote villages to buy furniture from private individuals. Chiang eventually bypassed the shops to deal directly with the runners. He was able to ask them about other kinds of furniture that existed in private homes and collections. To his surprise, not only were Qing pieces available, but older Ming were unearthed in remote parts of the country, like Shanxi province.

Fig. 34 This archaic recessed-leg side table, owned by scholar Chen Zengbi, features both humpback stretchers and double stretchers across the legs. Possibly from Shanxi province.

Fig. 35 Hong Kong’s Hollywood Road and Cat Street have long been famous for being the center of the antiques trade. This picture was taken at the turn of the twentieth century, but even today antique stores crowd along the narrow strip in Central. Photo courtesy Hong Kong Museum of History.

By 1986 the floodgates had opened and Chiang was joined by other Hong Kong dealers such as Cola Ma, who also established a system of runners (Fig. 36). Buyers like Chiang and Ma were on the frontlines. The next layer of dealers were Hong Kong retailers like Grace Wu Bruce and Albert Chan, and his sister Ruby, based in New York. These top dealers developed relationships with key collectors. Mimi Hung and Gangolf Geis purchased much of their huanghuali collections from Albert Chan, while Dr Shing Yiu Yip relied almost exclusively on Grace Wu Bruce. Peter Fung, a Hong Kong collector with a taste for zitan furniture, teamed up with Charles Wong, a former restorer who now runs a shop on Elgin Street.

The relationship between dealer and collector is an important one. Coherent collections are formed through alliances. The symbiosis ensures that dealers and collectors who share a common vision stand united if the market challenges provenance, age or restoration techniques. Because furniture is very difficult to date and the origins of many pieces are murky, debates are frequent and collectors tend to take sides.

Despite this, the popularity of Chinese furniture has continued to rise steadily. Any fear that antique Chinese furniture could not command prices achieved by porcelain or jade was dispelled at the Christie’s New York auction in 1996. The Fellowship of Friends, a religious organization that owns the Renaissance Vineyard and Winery in California that began collecting Chinese classical furniture in the late 1980s, sold its collection at auction for $11.2 million. At the time, it was the highest single sale of Chinese art.

Today, quality hardwood furniture continues to be snapped up by voracious buyers, but many shops now specialize in softwood furniture. Much of the furniture on the market now is from Ningbo (near Shanghai) or the northern province of Shanxi. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Shanxi was a wealthy region and its merchant class built large numbers of courtyard mansions that needed furnishings. Until the Japanese occupation in 1937, workshops in southwestern Shanxi flourished. Isolated by the various mountains, including the Taihang Range in the east, Shanxi did not experience the same degree of warfare and destruction as China’s southern coastal regions, so homes remained intact. Subsequently, during the Cultural Revolution, coal resources in Shanxi served as a buffer against cannibalization for fuel, whereas in other parts of China furniture was often broken up and used as firewood.

A lot of the furniture sold on the market today is heavily reconstructed. Throughout southern China, thousands of factories are churning out brand new or refurbished furniture and accessories that are passed off as antiques. The fakery is fueled by the booming international market for antique Chinese furniture, and by the fact that China is running out of genuinely old pieces.

There is, however, a silver lining. A huge proportion of furniture entering the US is from China, and while the majority of it is Western style for overseas clients, a growing number of furniture makers, some former dealers, are adapting traditional Chinese design. Now that antiques have dried up, and the market is wise to fakes, dealers have turned to making contemporary furniture using elements from classical Chinese furniture. Call it the new Ming. A handful of Asian designers, such as Hong Kong-based Barrie Ho and Taiwan’s Art of Chen, are drawing inspiration from the classics to design contemporary Ming-style furniture for well-heeled clients. The furniture market has thus come full circle.

Fig. 36 This warehouse, near the Lu Jiaying Antique Furniture market (at the southern third ring road), is owned by Fan Rong, a “runner” who sources furniture in Shanxi province.

Fig. 37 Recessed-leg lute table with a plain apron and cloud-collared spandrels, huanghuali, ca. early seventeenth century, collected by Robert Piccus and his wife and sold at Christie’s New York auction in 1992. Photo courtesy Robert A. Piccus.

Jin Culture

The former Jin culture (which is now Shanxi province) represents another branch—or offshoot—of furniture development. The Jin culture evolved more slowly and its furniture is considered very archaic with simple carvings featuring floral motifs. A wall mural from Shanxi province’s Yanshan Temple (dating back to the Tang dynasty) and miniature furniture models excavated near Datong (dating back to the Jin dynasty, AD 450) feature cabinets, tables and low beds that can still be found today—an example of how little furniture evolved in this corner of the world.

Hei Hung Lu

“My grandfather and father sold archaic jade. When Communism came to Beijing in 1949, I left for Hong Kong. I was just 16 years old. My mother’s brother set up a shop there catering to Californian dealers who had starting coming in 1948. We bought furniture in Beijing and secretly shipped it to Hong Kong. At first it was easy to get the goods out. Because of the Korean War, smuggling was rife, and there was no control over antiques. Sometime around 1953 or 1955, the flood turned to a trickle and we couldn’t get the best things out. We began selling articles from refugees who had fled China to Hong Kong [in 1949] and were selling some of their possessions. As a result, there was a good internal supply of furniture for many years. In those days, nobody paid attention to softwood. They only had eyes for hardwood furniture and items no later than the Qianlong period [AD 1736–96]. Kang tables became popular as coffee tables. We often cut the legs off larger pieces to make tables. I once watched as carpenters cut the legs off of a beautiful side table for the former German Consul General of China.

“I worked day and night [for my uncle] until I finally set up by own business in 1970. I started selling small things: boxes, brush pots and jade by sourcing from local suppliers. I even went to Europe and the US between 1973 and 1979 on buying trips looking for curios. In the mid-1970s, I started buying small wooden items in Beijing. In 1976, I visited the government-operated Peking Arts & Crafts Importing and Exporting Company and the China National Arts & Crafts Import and Export Company near Chao Yang Men. These had big warehouses full of antiques. The dealers called them the ‘three houses.’ That same year, I bought a warehouse in Hong Kong so I could concentrate on furniture, and attended the Beijing Fair organized by the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce of Arts and Crafts. The mainland desperately needed foreign currency and I needed stock. At the fair, I spent about US$100,000 on 40–50 pieces of furniture including several laohuali compound cabinets. Some of the Hong Kong dealers saw what I bought. Few people concentrated on classical Chinese furniture. I knew good pieces and quality and I was confident I could sell them. Bob [Ellsworth] was my connection to the American market. From 1976 until the mid-1980s, I continued to buy from the Peking Arts & Crafts shop. They had good things, but not early Ming. They didn’t always know what was good. I purchased a Ming tieli cupboard for less than $500 in the late 1970s. I started stockpiling because I knew the craft would run out because China was just opening up, and more competition was coming in. It was a race.

“We started buying from local dealers in Guangdong who set up a system of runners who sourced furniture and came to me later. When the market opened up in 1985, the government didn’t pay too much attention to furniture. Now everything is a hundred times more expensive.”

Cola Ma

Cola Ma was born into the antiques business. Descended from two generations of antiques dealers, he was left behind when his father and grandfather moved to Hong Kong in 1949. During the Cultural Revolution, there was little for the teenager to do in the city of Tianjin. “As a student, I had no job,” he says. There was no school either, so he stayed home and played the violin. Meanwhile, his father, T. K. Ma, had remarried in Hong Kong and opened the Tong Chung Peking Trading Company selling all kinds of antiques, but mainly furniture. When China opened up in 1979, Ma finally moved to Hong Kong looking for “new opportunities.” He was 31, and had little experience with antiques. “At first, I worked for my father, but I realized I needed to learn a lot more.” Instead of working within the confines of the family business, Ma offered his services to local dealer Ian McLean. The seasoned Hollywood Road dealer taught Ma two things: how to restore and refinish fine furniture, and how to appreciate the value of softwood. Four years later, Ma opened his own shop in Hong Kong.

“In the beginning, my father thought I’d never be able to succeed in the business,” says Ma. But Ma attempted what few other Hong Kong dealers did in the 1980s— he set up a factory in China, based in his hometown of Tianjin. From here, Ma traveled frequently to Beijing to source antiques. In a small suburb in northern Beijing, he stumbled across a small community of furniture dealers from Shanxi province. These were the “runners”—poor men who knew nothing about furniture except that there was plenty of it in their villages and they could realize a profit by “running” in shipments from Shanxi and selling it to shopkeepers. Isolated for centuries, the once-wealthy province of Shanxi was loaded with beautiful hard-wood and softwood furniture in archaic styles that dated back to the Song dynasty.

Ma quickly struck up a bargain with one dealer—Fan Rong from Xinjiang village. He established a good supply line and hoarded some of the best pieces from the region. A rare incense table he once purchased for 4,000 yuan is now worth roughly $40,000. In 1999, Ma, together with author Curtis Evarts, published his own book on Shanxi softwood furniture, thereby establishing his reputation as king of the vernacular.

Fan Rong

Sixteen years ago, Fan Rong was working as a laborer in an iron-producing factory. One day, on a trip to Beijing, he noticed that some of the markets were selling old furniture at fantastic prices. He thought the furniture from his province, Shanxi, was better than the things being peddled. Dipping into his savings, he made his way through the villages of Shanxi knocking on doors, asking to buy old furniture. Everyone asked him, “Why do you buy so much rubbish?” Fan did not let them in on his secret, but the huanghuali furniture he was purchasing for a pittance now sells for tens of thousands of dollars. “It was cheap and it was easy to collect,” he says. His only shopping guide was scholar Wang Shixiang’s book. “It took three years for others to catch on.”

Fan and his older brother, Fan Kong, were the first furniture runners in southern Shanxi. At the beginning, Fan Kong used a bicycle to travel to a village a few miles away where he bought a table for $92 and sold it for twice that—a sum larger than anything he had every seen. That arbitrage has become the foundation for a thriving business for the Fan brothers and also for a network of runners they helped recruit from the village of Dong Niu. About a hundred men, almost a quarter of the entire village, now buy and sell furniture. The richest have built fortress-like homes and helped pave roads.

Over the years, the Fan brothers learned the fine art of convincing families to sell their heirlooms. “It’s a battle of wits with the buyer,” says Fan Kong. Not only do the best runners have to talk their way into the homes of suspicious villagers, they must employ a little trickery now and again. Fan once tiptoed stocking feet into the home of a blind woman to evaluate a table she did not want to sell. Once he realized its worth, he convinced her son to tote it away in the dead of night while the old lady was sleeping.

On a recent visit to Zhao Hailin’s family in Gong village, Fan Rong discovered that a pair of old tables he had tried to buy for several years were now gone. Ms Zhao, an old client, had sold them because she needed to send her two daughters to school. For Fan, the loss of the tables is another sign of the shrinking market. “Now the number of wolves outnumbers the meat,” he says. Adding to Fan’s woes is the fact that television programs and newspapers routinely report on the auction and antiques trade. As villagers become educated, they are no longer satisfied with a few hundred dollars for a choice table. “When I first started, people weren’t aware of the value of furniture, so it was easy to buy,” says Fan. “For years, we tried to keep the prices secret. Only I and the buyer knew how much money he could get,” he says. Not any more.

As availability shrinks on their home turf, Shanxi suppliers involved in the mad hunt in China’s rural villages must look farther afield for fresh stock. Tales of frustrated runners breaking into homes after a deal goes sour are not uncommon. But there are still a few gems. “Eventually, if you push hard enough, and they are in a good mood, they will sell.”

Chen Zengbi

Beijing academic Chen Zengbi remembers well the day he bought his first piece of antique furniture. It was the summer of 1972 and he was making his weekly pilgrimage to the Cultural Relics Bureau. Chen was a student in the architecture department of the University of Peking, and furniture was his specialty—his passion. But this was the period of the Cultural Revolution and to own antique furniture was to be labeled a capitalist roader. The Red Guards were breaking up beautiful pieces and dumping them into warehouses run, ironically, by the Cultural Relics Bureau. The broken bits were being recycled. It was a strange ritual, but as a young student Chen used to visit the warehouses regularly, circumambulating the pile of wreckage “to say goodbye.” One day as he was paying his respects, Chen noticed the small round end of a table foot sticking out of the pile. It was the leg of a square table, but it was made of a very rare wood known as heitanmu (ebony). Intrigued, he asked the staff if they would mind if he dug around for some other bits of similar wood. The overseers obliged this regular visitor. From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Chen tore the pile apart looking for the matching pieces. By the time he had found all the parts, he was shaking. He had discovered a rare Ming-dynasty table but he was afraid he could not afford it. The warehouse sold wood by weight, and these heavy bits were going to cost 80 yuan. Chen’s monthly salary was only 56 yuan and he did not have enough money to purchase the pile of wood he had assembled, so he ran around to his family and friends to borrow the rest. He carefully stacked the wood on to a tricycle, covered it with a blanket, and rode home. Back in his apartment, Chen assembled the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. His heart was racing. He was thrilled, yet terrified. To possess such a piece was dangerous. But he could not resist showing his teacher, Yang Yao, a famous furniture scholar. Yang’s jaw dropped. He had never seen such a good piece in all his years. Together they visited the home of Beijing’s famous craftsman Li Jian Yuan. “His expression upon seeing it was similar to my teacher,” says Chen. After sharing his treasure, Chen disassembled the table and hid it under his bed until the Cultural Revolution was over. After gathering his courage to save this piece, he managed to conduct some other rescue operations. Today, he owns hundreds of pieces, and is preparing a book on classical Chinese furniture.