Antique Way

A Brief Introduction to Chinese Furniture

Classical Furniture

The Classical Chinese Furniture¡¯s group includes pieces from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) Dynasties. Historical documents demonstrate that pre-Ming furniture-making was already well developed both in skill and design, but very little has survived.As in Wang Shixiang¡¯s words, "it is only from Ming and early Qing times that pieces of furniture of high quality material and craftsmanship have been preserved from the large numbers that were made".

Ming and early Qing times are considered the Golden Age of Chinese furniture; pieces from this period are high-valued antiques and today is quite hard to find any. It is necessary to be a connoisseur to recognize and collect such pieces.

The Qianlong reign period (1736-1795) marks the beginning of the decadence in the tradition of fine furniture; still, because of its shortness and the first appearance of overly elaborate pieces (typical Qing furniture), furniture from this period is considered of excellent quality, attractis high value and are extremely sort after. In the latter part of the Qing Dynasty, Classical Furniture became just a shadow of the ancient tradition and lost the beauty of simplicity.

Vernacular Furniture

We wanted to start this section with a sentence like: "You won¡¯t find such a definition in any books"; but, as a matter of fact you can find one in Kai Yin Lo¡¯s book "Classical and Vernacular Chinese Furniture in the Living Environment". These categories can be defined in different ways, what we intend here is to define a specific group of Chinese furniture that is strictly related to place of origin and the daily lifestyles of the people that used them.These kinds of furniture have popular origins and differ from place to place; most of them were copied following the Classical Furniture models but all of them were made out of cheaper and lower-quality wood.

Their age vary between a range of time that goes from sixty to one hundred and more years ago.Today, this group of furniture is the most common one in the market; you can find pieces from Tianjin to Ningbo; from Shanxi to Tibet, all with their specific characteristics which can vary from town to town and from region to region. Because they were handmade following the traditional patterns and joinery techniques, the Vernacular furniture are highly appreciated by foreign buyers, but still they don¡¯t have a good market among Chinese people who care more about the quality of the wood and want to leave behind the rural past they represent.

Reproductions

All the pieces included in this group are perfect imitations made nowadays by Chinese carpenters in the style of the Classical Ming and Qing Dynasties¡¯ furniture. Under request they can be modified or changed into something totally new. The material used for these reproductions can be selected among the whole range of tropical and strictly Chinese woods, even the age of the wood itself, to some extent, can be chosen.

Woods

This section is the most controversial one but at the same time the most fascinating.

The main problem regards the different terminology that makes it impossible to match the Chinese names with English and Botanical ones. That¡¯s why usually the best way to denominate the material used in construction is to retain the Chinese names. Generally speaking, there are two main categories:

- Yingmu or Hardwood
- Zamu or Miscellaneous wood or Softwood
According to Grace Wu Bruce, "Ying mu refers to the richly grained dense tropical hardwoods of which Ming furniture was made",but it is important to add that it also refers to the beautiful quality in grain, streaking and colour, as in Chinese sense of beauty, grain,colour, texture and marking, represent the main characteristics in order to distinguish fine quality woods.
That¡¯s why among the Yingmu category we can find woods that are not considered Hardwood by Western standards, and why according to the Chinese definition Zamu includes all the woods not included in the Yingmu category.
Among the Yingmu category, the following are the main woods:

Huali, that is distinguished in Huanghuali and Xinhuali. Zitan.
Tieli, also called "Ironwood".
Jichimu, also called "Chicken-wing wood".
Jumu, also called "Southern Elm" (not really a hardwood).
Hongmu, that is often erroneously referred to as mahogany.
A special mention should go to a kind of wood that is not really a wood: the Yingzimu.
The Yingzimu, also called Burl wood, is the wood cut from a large knot or twisted root; it can come from any kind of tree and it is appreciated for its texture and patterns, that¡¯s why it is
usually used as a decorative insert.

Because, as we said, whatever is not Yingmu is actually Zamu, it is useless to list all the woods that belong to this category; it is sufficient to mention that the most common one is the Yumu (Elmwood).

Furniture made of Yingmu are, of course, the most precious and among this category, the old Yingmu is more valued and expensive than the new one. The Zamu category is a single group, but among this there can be woods that are actually more valuable than others: for example the Elmwood (and especially the old one) is better than the Pinewood.
To make a detailed description of each kind of wood would take too much space, for further information please refer to our bibliography & links section.

Recent Historical Pieces

Pieces that belong to this category differ from Vernacular Furniture in so much as they are strictly related to specific periods of China¡¯s modern history.The first of these periods is the Republic of China (1912-1949) or, in chinese, Minguo. Minguo furniture has a strong western influence and is thus also known as Chinese Colonial style. The Cultural Revolution is another of these periods; even though furniture from this time are honestly ugly and of low quality, it nonetheless documents a particular piece of China¡¯s history.

Huo Qi

According to the Chinese law, pieces of furniture that exceed an age of 100 years are considered antiques. All kind of antiques, in order to be exported outside Chinese territory, need a special permit issued by governmental authorities. This permit comes in the shape of a sealing wax stamp: the Huo Qi.

In order to get the Huo Qi, representatives from the State Cultural Relics Bureau must inspect every single piece of furniture and decide which can be exported and which cannot. The client must pay an inspection fee that varies according to the number of pieces to be inspected. Together with the Huo Qi, the representatives release a certificate to be used for customs clearance. Differing from the Huo Qi, the JinWenJian is a sticker that is applied on each piece of antique in order to allow the owner to sell it in the domestic Chinese market. Pieces that bring the JinWenJian, therefore are not allowed to be exported unless they are stamped with the Huo Qi.