Folding Armchair
Original Language Title交椅 黃花梨木 铸铁银饰件 明
CultureChinese
Datelate 16th or early 17th century
MediumHuanghuali wood, silver inlay, canvas
DimensionsOverall: 39 3/4 × 30 1/4 × 28 1/4 inches (100.97 × 76.84 × 71.76 cm)
Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust
Object number68-1
On View
On viewGallery Location
- 202
Collections
DescriptionA huanghuali folding horseshoe armchair with three-part arm supported on an S-curved circular section post which becomes square in section where the rear rail of the seat frame is tenoned into it before becoming circular again to form the front t legs. At the point at which the legs pivot the inside edge has a square shoulder. The C-curved splat in tenoned into the underside of the arm and the back rail of the seat frame and is carved with a continuous floral scroll with three mountain peaks to the base. The front seat rail, into which the rear legs are tenoned has a cusped outline carved with a central flower head and scrolling tendrils. Slab feet join the legs at the base, the front foot carved with an incised floral scroll, the footrest is square tenoned into the inside edge of the legs with a shaped apron with incised floral scroll and two animal headed shaped legs. Each pressure-pin scarf joint and tenon is reinforced with damascened iron mounts, and there are two straight damascened iron supports between the arm and the S-curved posts and C-curved supports within the crook of the support. The footrail is also mounted with damascened iron with a design of two interlocked rhinoceros horns and a central coin. Second half of 16th century.Gallery LabelElaborate folding chairs were often used by officials, since they were easy to transport as they traveled between their postings in the provinces. The proportions, carving, and ironwork make this one of the finest folding chairs known. If you look closely at the iron mounts, you will see that they are inlaid with silver.
With Blumka Gallery, New York, by 1968;
Purchased from Blumka Gallery by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1968.Archives of Asian Art, vol. xxiii, (New York: Asia Society, 1969-70), 68, fig. 33 (repro.).
Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ching dynasties (New York: Random House, 1971), 243, pl. 27 (repro.).
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 345 (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 365, no. 253 (repro.).
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