A rare 'huanghuali' 'dragon' mirror stand (Jingtai), Qing dynasty, 18th century

My Humble House, Taipei, 2004.

Splendidly carved in openwork with depictions of mythical creatures and auspicious symbols, the present mirror stand would have once graced the private quarters of a wealthy official, merchant or lady. Such luxury items, carved from precious huanghuali, rather than serving as ostentatious displays of wealth, were personal reminders of one’s achievements.

The central carved panel depicts the legend of the ‘Longmen falls,’ in which carp struggle to swim upstream and those that are successful in leaping to the top of the waterfall emerge as dragons; depictions of the carp turning into dragons were a visual shorthand for those that had passed their civil service examinations or had moved up in social stature. The imagery is thus fitting for a luxury item such as a huanghuali mirror stand. Compare the present work to a similar example, formerly in the collection of the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, published by Curtis Evarts in 'The Classic of Lu Ban and Classical Chinese Furniture,' Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Winter 1993, p. 41, fig. 19, and in Wang Shixiang and Curtis Evarts, Masterpieces from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, Chicago and San Francisco, 1995, p. 148, pl. 70. See, also, another example depicting the ‘Longmen falls’ scene sold at Christie’s New York, 21st March 2014, lot 2289.

A woodcut from the Lu Ban jing [Treatise of Lu Ban], an important treatise on carpentry and furniture-marking compiled in the fifteenth century, depicts a mirror stand with simple molded panels to the drawer fronts similar to those found on the present example, as illustrated by Klaas Ruitenbeek in 'An Early Treatise on Furniture Making – The Lu Ban jing', Chinese Furniture: Selected Articles from Orientations 1984-1994, Hong Kong, 1996, p. 125, fig. 2 (Fig 1).