A 'huanghuali' traveling apothecary cabinet (Yaoxiang), 17th / 18th century

Peter Lai Antiques, Hong Kong, 1991.

Cabinets of the present form, with fitted base and carrying frame, were used by scholars or officials for travel purposes; the interiors of such cabinets could be configured to hold books and scrolls, or in the case of the present example, with smaller drawers for medicine and herbs. The horizontal carrying member at the top of the frame, ornately carved on the present work with archaistic motifs, would have been tied with straps and lifted with a pole, rather than by the decorative metal handle, and the fitted base would have helped to protect the bottom of the cabinet from damp or damage while traveling.

Compare the present example with a slightly larger huanghuali traveling cabinet in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (accession no. 97.82a-e), illustrated by Nicholas Grindely and Robert Jacobsen in Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1999, p. 193, pl. 70 (Fig. 1). The Minneapolis example lacks the ornate carving on the horizontal carrying member, and the interior is apparently arranged for books rather than medicine. Wang Shixiang, in Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture, vol. II, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 172, pl. E22, illustrates an example with small drawers suitable for use as an apothecary cabinet like the present example.