A rare pair of 'huanghuali' and 'huamu' 'Fu character' armchairs (Sichutouguanmaoyi), Late Ming / early Qing dynasty, 17th century

Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, Renaissance, California.

Sotheby's New York, 2nd June 1993, lot 600.

My Humble House, Taipei, 2004.

Pu Anguo, 'A Discussion of Ming Style Furniture, in Two Parts,' Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Autumn 1992, p. 27, fig. 2.

Of generous proportions, varied textures, and ingenious juxtaposition of positive and negative space, the present pair represents a rare and fine testament to a beloved chair form. Known as guanmaoyi (official's hat-shaped chairs) after their resemblance to the winged hat of Ming officials, these chairs have retained a connotation of status and authority associated with the highest echelons of Chinese society. This regal form – also termed sichutou guanmaoyi (‘four-corners-exposed official’s hat chairs’) – is typified by the protruding ends of the top rail and stately armrests which exude a sense of power. Such chairs appear to have evolved from earlier furniture pieces, including a chair depicted in the Western Wei dynasty wall painting of Cave 285 in the Dunhuang cave complex, and another in Wang Qihan's Kanshu Tu [Picture of book proofreading] from the Southern Tang state in the Five Dynasties, the latter bearing remarkable resemblance with Ming dynasty examples. 

With ornate openwork fu characters and inlaid burlwood panels to the backsplat, the present pair bears a close resemblance to an important group of eleven related yokeback armchairs, dominated by four from the collection of the Reverend Richard Fabian sold in two pairs in these rooms, 15th March 2016, lots 31 (Fig. 1) and 32, the latter sold more recently at China Guardian, Beijing, 17th November 2019, lot 4636. For other chairs in the group, compare a pair with huanghuali backsplats in place of the original burl, formerly from the collection of John Alex McCone, sold in these rooms, 3rd June 1992, lot 348; a single armchair from the Hung Collection, illustrated in Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, pl. 10; one from the collection of Peter Fung, published by Curtis Evarts in A Leisurely Pursuit, Splendid Hardwood Antiquities from the Liang Yi Collection, Hong Kong, 2000, pp 66-67, pl. 10; another, from the collection of Cheney Cowles, illustrated by Curtis Evarts in ‘From Ornate to Unadorned: A Study of Yokeback Chairs’, The Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Spring 1993, pp 24-33, fig. 3, sold at Bonhams Hong Kong, 20th March 2023, lot 98; another in the Minneapolis Institute of Art (accession no. 95.93.1) (Fig. 2) – reputedly found in the Daitoku-ji temple in Kyoto, Japan – with a variation in the fu character and a new burlwood panel replacing a prior marble replacement; and another single example sold in these rooms, 19th March 2007, lot 305. For further information on the group, see Evarts, op. cit., who has since cited a broader group of twenty-four chairs bearing at least a subsection of the present decorative elements as individual commissions from a single workshop. 

While distinct from the above group of chairs in overall form - in particular, the back splats have a ruyi-form panel instead of a plain apron and lack the flanking shaped spandrels - the present chairs remain closely related in their auspicious symbolism. Intricately carved from rich huanghuali, the prominent fu characters on each splat convey a wish for happiness and blessing to their owners. The rare inclusion of bamboo-vase supports, zhubao ping’an, below the arms similarly serve as a rebus for ‘virtue brings peace’. This combined wish for enduring happiness and peace would have made the pair particularly fitting as a gift for a newly married couple, while the archaism of the design serves to deepen the auspicious symbolism by referencing previous generations and the traditional value of looking to the past in order to successfully build the future.