A pair of large 'huanghuali' 'Southern official's hat' armchairs (Nanguanmaoyi), Late Ming dynasty, 17th century

Christie's New York, 29th November 1990, lot 392.

My Humble House, Taipei, 2004.

Of fluid form and brilliant wood-grain, the present chairs epitomize the refined taste and exacting standards of the Ming carpenter. Known as nanguanmaoyi, or ‘Southern official’s hat chairs’, this specific form has emerged as one of the most desirable forms of yokeback armchair to survive from the Ming period; its slender members curving subtly to greet the sitter and its broad backsplat quietly declaring the opulence of its owner. Chairs of this design appear to have been associated with the ruling elite from their conception with miniature versions of this form preserved among the final possessions of leading Ming officials including Pan Yunzheng, whose model chairs were illustrated by Nancy Berliner in Beyond the Screen. Chinese Furniture of the 16th and 17th Centuries, Museum of Replica Handbags s, Boston, 2000, pl. 30i.

Nanguanmaoyi are characterized by the unbroken line from top and side rails to arms and legs, a feature that was made possible through the ingenious right-angle ‘pipe joint’. The present pair are further distinguished by the inclusion of shaped spandrels at the corners beneath the crestrail and the armrests, providing both extra support and stylistic panache.

Surviving examples of this large size and quality retaining their corner spandrels are exceedingly rare. Compare a closely related pair of nanguanmaoyi from the collections of Günther Huwer and Walter Fuchs in Gustav Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture, Rutland, 1962, pl. 105; another pair with ‘vase-and-bamboo’ struts sold in our London rooms, 4th November 2020, lot 107 (Fig. 1); another single chair illustrated in Sarah Handler, Ming Furniture in the Light of Chinese Architecture, Berkeley, 2005, p. 117, who notes that large chairs of this type “give status and dignity to the sitter and are often depicted at the scholar’s desk;" and a square-membered chair of similar form and corner spandrels preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing in Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 50, pl. A78.