QING DYNASTY, 17TH-18TH CENTURY

The present cabinet, with its simple lines, represents one of the most popular and successful designs in Chinese furniture construction, and was widely used in cabinet making throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. Several examples of this type and with square-corner counterparts are known. A similar example of 17th-18th century date was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 28 November 2012, lot 2015 and another with an 18th century date from the Arthur M. Sackler Collection, without the centre stile, was sold at Christie's New York, 18 March 2009, lot 383.

Compare the pair of huanghuali tapered cabinets, lacking the centre stiles, illustrated by Robert H. Ellsworth in Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, pp. 192-93, no. 75, where they are dated to the early 17th century. A huanghuali round-corner tapered cabinet of smaller size (120 cm.) in the collection of The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, catalogued as 17th century, is illustrated by Robert D. Jacobsen and Nicholas Grindley in Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota, 1999, pp. 150-51, no. 52.