Early Chinese furniture
The antique chinese furniture show in this section represents the very best of Urban and provincial furniture from the greater shanxi region.
Along side a limited number of Huang Huali pieces there aremany more in Elm , walnut , cypress . The earliest examples of Chinese furniture in our collection date from the early 17thC , the last years of the ming dynasty.
Good quality classical chinese furniture from the 16th and 17th C is well documented, provincial chinese furniture from the Shanxi and Shanxxi regions is less well documented , but there are a number of useful books for anyone looking to aquire early chinese funriture. In my opinion the best is
C L Ma's .Traditional chinese furniture from the greater Shanxi region.
also helpful are ...
Nancy Berliners Friends of the house
and Antiques in the raw published by China Art.
The great thing about these books are that they show the furniture , unrestored .
Anyone who has bought antique chinese furniture in mainland china can not help but be alarmed at the production line tactics that produces alarmingly glossy furniture with all the life removed from it .I can not count the number of time i have seem furniture that i would have purchased if i had got to it before the "restorer " had .