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Traditional Chinese Furniture

I wanted to share my impressions of a book I recently completed called “C. L. Ma Collection: Traditional Chinese Furniture from the Greater Shanxi Region.” It was written by Curtis Evarts and published by C. L. Ma Furniture in Hong Kong in 1999. Bottom line: I love this book! I love it as it contains three insights that I have not seen elsewhere. First, Ming and Qing furniture were made with woods other than the well known huanghuali, zitan, and chicken wing woods, which are considered “hardwood” in China. Second, there is a difference between the Chinese and Western definitions of “hardwood” and “softwood.” “….Western vernacular, wherein “softwood” implies soft coniferous woods like pine, fir and cedar, and “hardwood” implies wood from deciduous trees of varying hardness like walnut, cherry, and oak – these latter examples are classified as softwoods in the Chinese tradition.” Third, nails are used in early Chinese furniture construction. Nails are used to “…attach table aprons to the underside of their tabletops and to the legs. Standing spandrels are frequently attached with nails at the top. Deep humpback stretchers are also attached to the aprons above with nails….”

January 27th, 2010

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