Chinese Export Padouk Corner Chair
Chinese, Second quarter 18th Century
With yoke-shaped top-rail continuing into scrolled arms, the three pierced splats carved with a ruyi-head, and flanked by two turned uprights, the elaborately-shaped apron over cabriole legs with pad feet joined by turned cross stretchers. Second quarter of the 18th Century.
Height 35" (89cm).
Max. width 30" (76cm).
Max. depth 26" (66cm).
There are particular variations between this chair and an English one of the same type. In the latter, the back is upright and normally does not have a central splat, but a turned pole, presumably to avoid the difficulty of carving a curved splat. Also, the arms are usually parallel to the seat.(1) With the present chair, the back is canted backwards, and the arms slope downwards, and both the back-splat and side-splats are curved, the side-splats in two planes, which is quite an accomplishment. The sophistication of the chair is further shown by the finely shaped arms, which scroll right back on themselves, finishing in a point, by the very finely waved seat-rail, the shaping continuing at the back, and the fine edge-moulding to the splats and the front two sides of the apron.
A Chinese Export corner chair, in the collection of the Peabody Museum, Salem,(2) shares the sloping arms of this present chair, but in other respects is closer to the Western prototype. It is upright, with central pole at the back, and the two splats are canted backwards but are not curved, just as in an English chair of this type.
A pair of rosewood corner chairs in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, are very similar to the present chair, having pierced ruyi-heads in their central splats and related, though simpler, shaped aprons.(3) They have an interesting history within the museum. Acquired in 1879, they were originally described as English, mid-18th Century, and as being made of mahogany. In the 1980s, mainly because of the pierced ruyi-head on the splats, it was thought that they were made in China for the Western market (like the present armchair), and they were transferred to the Far Eastern Department. During the 1990s, a close examination of their construction showed that they were probably not Chinese, and possibly Indian. Following recent research, they are now known to have been made in Goa.(4)
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Footnotes
1. For an example, see Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, Rev. Ed., 1954, Vol. One, fig. 144, p. 272, from the collection of Henry Hirsch.
2. Museum no. E81660.
3. Museum nos. 312 & a-1879. See Amin Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India, The Art of the Indian Cabinet-Maker, 2002, no. 32, pp. 78-9.
4. Ibid.