The Invigilator 2022
The Invigilator 2022 (Gary Carsley) in the Conservatory of the Illawarra Pavilion 2022 (the ArtHitects). Animation and videography by Yi Song and Runqing Ye. Single channel HD video with soundscape by Louise Loh.
The Escarpment 2022
Set into the central, primary peristyle of The Illawarra Pavilion, The Escarpment Moving-Water Bowlscape brings into the mind’s eye the cloistered yet delightful domestic garden setting common to both the Chinese Courtyard home to the Hortus Conclusus of the ancient Roman Domus, The Escarpment is a cultural relocation and reenactment fantastique of the wider Illawarra Escarpment landscape into a Moving-Water Bowlscape or Dòngshuǐ Pénjǐng (动水盆景), complete with the dynamic allure of the waterfall, aquatic flora and fauna. The originating loci of the Moving-Water Bowlscape is in the ancient Chinese art of Pénjǐng (盆景) which, along with its close Japanese cousins Bonsai (盆栽) and Saikei (栽景), sought to depict if not enact artistically formed trees, other plants, and/or landscapes in miniature.
Emerging as a formalised art form in China during the height of the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 C.E.), the Pénjǐng today can be further classified into three main categories: Shùmù Pénjǐng (树木盆景) which focusses on the aesthetics of a single or collection of miniaturised trees in a pot; Shānshuǐ Pénjǐng (山水盆景) which is a deliberate composition of select rocks in contact with water and completed with small live plants to depict a miniature landscape, and finally, Shuǐhàn Pénjǐng (水旱盆景) which effectively combines the practices of the two aforementioned categories. The Escarpment Moving-Water Bowlscape thus inhabits the locus of the Shānshuǐ Pénjǐng, albeit with a much deeper water setting; powered by with the modern electric water pump and augmented with a built-in water(fall) filtration system - hence the prefix Moving-Water (动水), to allow fishes and other aquatic life forms to safely and happily inhabit the Bowlscape.
The Invigilator 2022
Welcome to The Illawarra Pavilion. Confabulated by the ArtHitects Gary Carsley and Renjie Teoh out of 3,563 overlapping A4 photocopy sheets, applied patiently over 24 consecutive days.
Linking the past and future of this region to the wider one of the Asia Pacific though objects from the Wollongong Art Gallery’s Mann-Tatlow Collection of Asian Art and Antiquity has enabled the ArtHitects to develop a distinctive visual language. One synthesised at the intersection of their diverse cultural backgrounds and different but complimentary creative practices as Artist and Architect. The ArtHitects through their commitment to labour as cognitive, contest the progressive collapse of work relative to capital through the distinction they make between representation and enactment as approaches to image making.
New subject biographies by members of the Illawarra Writers Centre complement the existing object one’s and can be accessed through the various QR codes embedded in the pavilion’s architecture. This adds new layers of meaning and value to the objects on display, enriching them by linking them to contemporary discourses. Please enjoy your visit and remember…. do not touch anything, as I will be watching.
- The Inviligilator (voiced by Yi Song)
The Illawarra Pavilion is invigilated by an 18th century (1765-1770) by a Derby porcelain figurine that has been in the collection of the Gallery since its inception. Invigilators watch over exams and guard exhibition displays and, in this work, animated by Runqing Ye and Yi Song the Derby figurine looks around casting her protective gaze over the Pavilion and its contents. The Invigilator introduces The Illawarra Pavilion and informs the viewer that supplementary content can be accessed through the numerous QR codes embedded in the Pavilion’s architecture.
Porcelain originally evolved in China and the use of Yi’s voice and facial expressions mapped by Runqing onto the face of the (originally) 11 cm high Derby figurine reminds us of the long history of cultural and technological exchanges between China and the West. We are mindful that the mutuality of this historical dialogue seems to have been forgotten in the present. The monitor speaker also delivers the soundscape composed by Louise Loh.
The soundscape is a vital part of the ambience of The Illawarra Pavilion and in addition to composing the soundscape’s music which features flutist Angie Wyatt, Louise also generated The Illawarra Pavilion’s master audio file. This contribution incorporates Louise’s music, Yi’s voice and a minute of silence which allows the visitor to hear the gentle tumbling of water down the face of The Escarpment, a microverse or moving water bowlscape that occupies a prominent position in the Illawarra Pavilion’s peristyle or internal courtyard.
Still Life as Monument. 2021/22
Developed by colluding with Carla Hart from Wildflower Floral Stylists Still Life as Monument is a high gloss, direct to metal unique state print that features a monumentally scaled floral arrangement by Carla and two gigantic butterflies – the Australian Painted Lady (Vanessa kershawi) and the Eastern Ringed Xeneca (Geitoneura acantha) both of which are endemic to the Illawarra. The incorporation of two lattice elements from a hardwood Qing dynasty provincial lattice-backed cabinet displayed elsewhere into two massive flanking buttresses either side of the image deliberately ambiguates its cultural location. This is one of the many examples of how the ArtHitects use spolia a process in which architectural fragments from one era or culture are repurposed by another. Spolia is an important concept for the ArtHitects and an example of their citation of arcane or forgotten processes to examine contemporary issues from a different perspective. The butterflies could stand in for the ArtHitects and its position opposite the entrance doors directly corresponds to the landscaping outside the front of Wollongong Art Gallery which similarly features a Gymea Lilly (Doryanthes excelsa).
The highly polished surface of the image in addition to making it difficult to read its details and composition upon entering The Illawarra Pavilion allows it to reflect the light coming through the entrance doors to the gallery opposite. This creates the illusion of another possible opening to the outside within the pavilion. Additionally, because you must approach it closely to view Still Life as Monument clearly the image obliges the viewer to move into specific positions on either side to view it fully which is a strategy commonly used in garden design from China and less frequently elsewhere.
View of Mt Kembla from Gleniffer Brae (Before and after Eugene Von Guérard) 2022
One of the most celebrated works in the collection of the Wollongong Art Gallery is Eugene Von Guérard’s painting Cabbage tree forest, American Creek, New South Wales which features a composited view of a compressed Mt Kembla through a grove of Cabbage tree palms. The scene is composed from various separate viewpoints that von Guérard coheres into a confabulated landscape with distinct foreground, middle ground and background components a historic and contemporary model I have also used here in View of Mt Kembla from Gleniffer Brae (Before and after Eugene Von Guérard), the first in a new body of direct to metal unique state prints. In these new work’s the underlying photograph is distinctly visible through the images upper surface layer as a way of acknowledging that in the first instance landscape is an effacement of country. As a process it is a reverse engineering of Pentimento where a visible trace of an earlier painting begins to assert itself through the strata of overpainting.
View of Mt Kembla from Gleniffer Brae (Before and after Eugene Von Guérard), takes a view of Mt Kembla from a location similar to that used by Von Guérard and compresses it so that it closely resembles the distorted profile of Mt Kembla in Von Guérard’s 1860 painting,
A spectacular Illawarra Flame tree observed on Mt Kirra road which was planted by the descendants of the house’s current occupants three generations ago occupies the position and substitutes for the vertical Cabbage Tree palms in the Wollongong Art Gallery’s Von Guérard. The foreground are some of the original Paul Sorenson landscaping design elements from the garden at Glennifer Brae.
View of Mt Kembla from Gleniffer Brae (Before and after Eugene Von Guérard), is displayed opposite a Qing dynasty provincial lattice-backed hardwood cabinet from which the 2 lattice backed elements have been removed. The excision of the cabinet’s back relocates it culturally and temporally. Among the diverse objects from the Mann-Tatlow Collection displayed on its shelves is a Neolithic earthenware pot with red painted decoration (circa 2,500 BC) from Northeast Thailand. The pattern and shape of the jar links it to similar Neolithic objects from the Mediterranean among the many ways the ArtHitects cite global cultural discourses not originating wholly in the West.
View of Mt Kembla from Gleniffer Brae (Before and after Eugene Von Guérard), takes its distinctive laser cut profile from that of the Neolithic painted jar displayed opposite in an intentionally direct dialogue. The scale of this double layered image allows it to function as one of several optical portals inserted into The Illawarra Pavilion’s architecture.By seamlessly overlaying a high gloss curvilinear shape on top of a rectangular window in which the same image is not only matt but realised in a different print media the ArtHitects enact their understanding of the harmonious concurrence of difference and sameness within art and life.
Redwood Bonsai
Kindly lent to us by the Urimbirra Bonsai Society, this 15-year old Redwood (Sequoia) bonsai is set within the (illusionistic) circular secondary courtyard of the Illawarra Pavilion to evoke the wispy, wind-sculpted Pine trees that often feature prominently in Chinese, Korean and Japanese landscape paintings and, not to mention, also as spectacular bonsais in the contemplative garden.
This bonsai specimen, along with the Moving-water Bowlscape located in the central peristyle, sets up a conversation about cultural transmission and resonance as the Japanese art of Bonsai (盆栽) is close cousin to the Chinese art of Pénjǐng (盆景) which formally emerged at the height of the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907 C.E.). Pénjǐng can be further classified into three main categories: Shùmù Pénjǐng (树木盆景) which focusses on the aesthetics of a single or collection of miniaturised trees in a pot; Shānshuǐ Pénjǐng (山水盆景) which is a deliberate composition of select rocks in contact with water and completed with small live plants to depict a miniature landscape, and finally, Shuǐhàn Pénjǐng (水旱盆景) which effectively combines the practices of the two aforementioned categories. It is the Shùmù Pénjǐng that, when transmitted over to Japan via a long history of cultural exchange with China, became the most popular and accessible form that we (in the Western world) now regard as a quintissential representation of Japanese Art and Culture.
The Illawarra Pavilion
The Illawarra Pavilion
Confabulated by the ArtHitects out of 3,563 overlapping sheets of 80 gsm photocopy produced on a KYOCERA TASKalfa 2554ci office copier The Illawarra Pavilion is a handmade print on a uniquely large scale. As a (fine) art print, The Illawarra Pavilion engages with printmaking’s legacy status as a minor, (undervalued) artform to explore aspects of contemporary Australian identity through a dialogue with selected items from Wollongong Art Gallery’s Mann-Tatlow Collection of Asian Art and Antiquities.
The Illawarra Pavilion’s architectural features are confected out of (high-resolution) photographs of Qing furniture details which are subsequently reinserted into the illusionistic, multi-perspectival architectonic environment produced from and with the furniture’s own material and cultural language. The resulting pedagogic image is a feedback loop of illusions and allusions actualising the (increasingly) blended societal experience of contemporary, multi-cultural Australia.
The process of disembodying doors and backs of Qing dynasty furniture items and incorporating them into a (complex,) spatialised image acknowledges the wider discourse of displacement, relocation and integration that are lived experiences for many in our community. Likewise, the Illawarra Pavilion’s multi-perspectival rooms and chambers and non-linear temporalities speak both to the past and future of a visual language that proceeds from an exchange (and synthesis) of cultures embodied (in the present) by the different backgrounds, generations, and professional identities of the ArtHitects.
The detachment and reuse of parts of buildings and monuments is termed spolia a practice common in antiquity. Spolia is the repurposing of building and construction materials for the creation of new edifices and has practical, philosophical and dialogistical implications that the ArtHitects use in part to propose a visual language that reflects identical social, political and economic developments they encounter in (daily) life. In this regard, The Illawarra Pavilion expresses the ArtHitects interest in arcane, forgotten and overlooked knowledge as an antidote to the increasing uniformity and ubiquity that characterises a world in which biological diversity is similarly diminishing because of how economic forces (equally) affect both nature and culture in the same way.
The Illawarra Pavilion is a continuous image 61.5 meters in length and took 24 (long) consecutive days to install. As a fine art print, it draws inspiration from the (stupendous) wood block works of artist’s such as Durer which were also composed of numerous small units that (seamlessly) cohered into monumental structures. As a handmade print, larger and more complex than any being produced in the world at this time The Illawarra Pavilion enacts The ArtHitects commitment to contesting the collapse of the value of labour relative to capital. They believe this is a corrosive social, political and economic issue that has alienated working people from their (historical) commitment to progressive causes such as those related to the environment, refugees and the status of minority groups and their access to visibility. As such, The Illawarra Pavilion is not an image of the transubstantive, cognitive and magical capacity of hand but its enactment.
The ArtHitects (Gary Carsley & Renjie Teoh) were assisted by Karan Singh Shekhawat
Mid Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Side table, c. 1700 - 1800's hardwood
Mid-Qing dynasty (c. 1700-1800) Chinese hardwood side table with characteristic ‘cracked ice’ patterned carved openwork lattice shelf.
Note: Piece 231
by Dr. Elana Herbert
Mr Tatlow, Sir, you have
outdone yourself, dipping
your toe in The Great Qing
collecting something less
ordinary. this time. eighteen
dragons delicately (considering
windshift) fly over fifty rocky
peaks. rulers of water, wind
mountains and rain across four
hemispheres, momentarily rest
the face, each to four square
doors of one shelf less cabinet.
inside the void, the scent of cloves hangs
heavy, reminiscent as a cliché, a cabinet
much less ordinary when its making
is considered, carved hongmu – sourwood
a tropical hardwood delight for
those who delight in tropics, dark
grained, luscious red creates its
depth, brings warmth. carved (possibly)
at the Canton Woodworking Workshopi
the good old CWW. what a reputation that
place had (I suspect) for parties, lavish
with fiery Baijiu, pickled vegetables, salty
oysters and surrendering thighs.
and dragons – Mr Tatlow – remember
those dragon kings who each
controlled four seas (if we accept
Lake Baikal as a sea) who created
seemingly endless prosperity
served alone the emperor
then departed gloriously as
a summer storm. flew south, landed
with such lightness (for carved
Hongmu) deftly on the edge
of an escarpment bathed in
light, volatile with eucalypt
infusions. here in this museum
corner, together, shedding
their skins with delight.
Biography: Piece 231
c. 1882 Guangxu period, late Qing Dynasty, Blackwood
From the reign of Emperor Guangxu (formerly ‘Zaitian’), nephew and adopted son of
Dowager Empress Cixi. Guangxu ascended the throne aged five and reigned during a
tumultuous period when Cixi (a former concubine) broke tradition to rule as his regent.
Cixi’s relentless control only ended in 1908, with her suspicious death, one day after
Guangxu’s own suspicious death, and announcement the throne would pass to Guangxu’s
three year old nephew.
Carved at the Canton Woodworking Workshop (CWW) by their pre-eminent woodcarver
(name lost), the cabinet once held a false bottom drawer. In this cleverly constructed
drawer, the woodcarver’s fourteen year old daughter, Mĕilì (Mĕilì de lóng zhuă (Beautiful
Dragon Claw)) was smuggled out of the palace, when the cabinet was returned to her
father at the CWW for repair of a purposefully damaged panel.
Mĕilì’ had fallen foul of Cixi, following Guangxu’s choice of Mĕilì as his principal
concubine, despite fused fingers on her right hand, an insignificant impediment, but one
which made it impossible for her to wear golden fingernail guards, a compulsory
adornment for concubines. Cixi, famous for her own long nail guards, had decreed that no
concubine was to be seen without them.
Rumour also had it that Cixi planned to permanently ‘remove’ Mĕilì, to ensure no royal
baby would ever be born with the aforementioned dragon claw feature, often considered a
mark of strong personal power.
- In Qing Dynasty, there was a woodworking workshop, even one specifically called Canton woodworking workshop, installed under the Workshops of the Imperial Household Department (內廷作坊). The talented carvers nevertheless devoted most of their time to ivory carving, with wood carving only as a side job.
Source: http://www.hanban.com/chinese-culture/chinese-art/chinese-wood-carving.html
The Finer Things
by Lore White
A paper trail tells the least interesting story here.
Reveals only who had the money and the space and the want for new cupboards. The character of antiques comes from the ways they were touched before you could touch them.
These two cupboards, we’ll call them siblings, tasked with keeping a gentle grip on a multigenerational internal world.
Look back over the past three hundred years and see them standing tall either side of an equally ornate bedroom doorway. Filled to the brim, but neatly so, each item folded precisely. Corners meeting corners. Their dark carved doors swirl with playful characters and fill the room with the faint scent of camphor.
The doors must be open fully to gain access to the drawers. A wide and dramatic gesture fit for the rare tree felled to make this pair.
To fill each space the mind holds out silk and runs it through fingers. Now soaked in sweet soft colour our storage is worthy of it’s carved dragon guards. What moth would dare feast itself here, after the soft clink of the brass fish door handle falls quiet and closed.
It’s only in the last nineteen years they’ve been empty, grown restless and creaky. Become things to be stored themselves. Away in some back room where the lights turn themselves off without movement. Arms full of stale air and mold.
Until moments ago, until this moment, until you with your touch came to fill drawers with finer things again.
Late Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Cabinet carved blackwood
“One of the most outstanding collections of Chinese antiques to be seen in Australia was that brought to this country by the Wolcken family during the early 1950s. The extensive collection comprised some very rare and beautiful examples of furniture, embroidery, porcelain and jewellery.
The family of Alfred Wolcken had resided in China for many years, Alfred himself being born there in 1874. He and his wife Anna lived in Tien-tsin and during those years their four sons Hans, Fritz, Kurt and Rolf were born.
Tien-tsin (“Heavenly Ford”) was at that time an important commercial centre and had been since the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty (1206-1368). With its location, south east of central Peking and on the edge of the North China Plain, Tien-tsin assumed an important role in China’s economy.
Alfred Wolcken and his family lived in most comfortable surroundings, as he held an important position in European trade. Wolcken socialised in the highest Chinese circles and with important officials, including Sun Yat-sen, who was leader of the Nationalist Party and influential in the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty (1911). Sun Yat-sen went on to become the first provincial president of the Republic of China.
Life in China became increasingly tense. Mao Tse-tung aimed to create in China a socialist society and worldwide communism. To this end the Communist Party sought the coalition of elements of the urban upper middle class with the working and peasant classes. One aspect of this involved the seizure and distribution of property and belongings from selected target groups—rural landlords, traitors, bureaucratic capitalists and specific foreign nationals—as observed by Communist Party members.
It was at that time, in the early 1950s, that Hans and Margarita Wolcken arrived in Australia, having left China in time to save themselves and their fine antiques from the advance of the Communists.
One of the most exceptional pieces of the collection was this pair of matching cabinets featuring heavy carving. The cabinets dated from the 18th century and were made from tzu-t’an wood which was considered the finest of the Chinese cabinet woods.”
- Wayne Ricketts
Mr Tatlow purchased this pair of cabinets, the larger similarly carved blackwood cabinet, the pair of altar tables and the pair of gold and sliver thread embroideries from the surviving members of the Wolcken family in the 1980’s.
Each cabinet is a fine example of Chinese craftsmanship. The doors are beautifully carved feature panels, with a delicate use of line employed to depict frolicking sea dragons (li-lung) playing beneath swirling ocean waves.
Late Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Pair of cabinets carved blackwood
Mr Tatlow purchased this pair of cabinets, the larger similarly carved blackwood cabinet, the pair of altar tables and the pair of gold and sliver thread embroideries from the surviving members of the Wolcken family in the 1980’s.
Each cabinet is a fine example of Chinese craftsmanship. The doors are beautifully carved feature panels, with a delicate use of line employed to depict frolicking sea dragons (li-lung) playing beneath swirling ocean waves.
“One of the most outstanding collections of Chinese antiques to be seen in Australia was that brought to this country by the Wolcken family during the early 1950s. The extensive collection comprised some very rare and beautiful examples of furniture, embroidery, porcelain and jewellery.
The family of Alfred Wolcken had resided in China for many years, Alfred himself being born there in 1874. He and his wife Anna lived in Tien-tsin and during those years their four sons Hans, Fritz, Kurt and Rolf were born.
Tien-tsin (“Heavenly Ford”) was at that time an important commercial centre and had been since the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty (1206-1368). With its location, south east of central Peking and on the edge of the North China Plain, Tien-tsin assumed an important role in China’s economy.
Alfred Wolcken and his family lived in most comfortable surroundings, as he held an important position in European trade. Wolcken socialised in the highest Chinese circles and with important officials, including Sun Yat-sen, who was leader of the Nationalist Party and influential in the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty (1911). Sun Yat-sen went on to become the first provincial president of the Republic of China.
Life in China became increasingly tense. Mao Tse-tung aimed to create in China a socialist society and worldwide communism. To this end the Communist Party sought the coalition of elements of the urban upper middle class with the working and peasant classes. One aspect of this involved the seizure and distribution of property and belongings from selected target groups—rural landlords, traitors, bureaucratic capitalists and specific foreign nationals—as observed by Communist Party members.
It was at that time, in the early 1950s, that Hans and Margarita Wolcken arrived in Australia, having left China in time to save themselves and their fine antiques from the advance of the Communists.
One of the most exceptional pieces of the collection was this pair of matching cabinets featuring heavy carving. The cabinets dated from the 18th century and were made from tzu-t’an wood which was considered the finest of the Chinese cabinet woods.”
- Wayne Ricketts
Response MT.229
by Judi Morison
My lady chose me for her dowry when her father sent her south as a bride. Perhaps my
lattice—tendrils pinned with timber flowers—reminded her that, like a songbird, she
would be caged. When she found she could remove the wooden pegs that secure my
lattice panels—make me freer, more open—did that give her hope she might one day
escape her prison?
To divert her, I display the dishes she buys from the potter on her way to the
market. Her plates flaunt humpback bridges and camellia blooms, ships in full sail and
deer leaping, peaceful pagodas and unfettered figures. Her pottery puzzles the master.
He distrusts the tales its many-coloured glazes tell.
He would choose a heavy cabinet, with solid doors to hold his loot, yet she is
content with my two drawers. The right-hand one—where she keeps her father’s
missives—is pale and smooth from constant contact. The softness of my buttery grain,
my sea of swirls, displeases him. He mistakes my elegance for weakness.
Each time the girl enters our chamber to clean, my lady frets. The child never
polishes me well. My mistress follows with a scrap of silk, and strokes me wherever the
girl has missed a mote of dust. Does my slender frame evoke the sapling I once was,
and take my lady back to her green self?
Steadfast, I wait for her caresses—the kiss of silk, the graze of her fingertips. I
glow at her touch.
Qing dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Provincial lattice-backed cabinet c. 1700s hardwood
This hardwood cabinet is an elegant yet functional piece of furniture with upper and lower display shelves, two drawers with metal drawer pulls and two removable decorative lattice panels. The lattice work is carved as individual pieces which fit together with keys, like a jigsaw puzzle. No glue is used in the construction of this complex design.
“Much of the furniture produced in China was also enhanced with metal mounts. Wardrobes, cabinets and chests of drawers were decorated with ornamental lock and handle plates, door and drawer pulls.
Very old metal fittings have been analysed as a copper-nickel alloy called pai-t’ung (paktong). Paktong was worked cold by Chinese craftsmen after having been cast in sheets. This was made possible by its superior malleability, and necessary due to its high melting point. Craftsmen hammered the metal to the desired shape. Over time paktong took on a softly tarnished appearance which enhanced the colours of the wood used.
Metal fittings were attached to the furniture using flattened wires of the same metal placed into small drilled holes. The wires also served as loops to attach pulls or handles. When attaching hinge plates the wires or cotter pins were either ground flat or had ornamental heads.”
- Wayne Ricketts
The repeated floral symbol at the join of each piece of lattice is a stylised representation of the four-petaled blossom of the Northern Chinese date tree. In Chinese, the word for ‘date’ is phonetically identical to ‘early’ or ‘soon’.
Late Qing dynasty, Xuantong period (1908 - 1912) China Pair of alter tables, c. 1910 rosewood
These tables were originally purchased by Mr Tatlow from the Wolcken collection. Known as shen-an, (so named because they were used to display Buddha statues, ancestor tablets and offerings) the tables are fine examples of key-fret (decorative relief) carving.
The tables are rich in traditional Chinese symbols including the lingzhi fungus, symbolising longevity and immortality, carved under the curved end of each table. At the base of each leg is a single carved thunder pattern which is doubled and duplicated at the top of each leg towards the centre of the table. Thunder is the sound of fire and the laughter of heaven.
Next to the thunder pattern is a fine fretwork carved ‘endless knot’ one of the ‘Eight Buddhist Emblems of Good Fortune’. In the centre is a carved Chinese coin, which is of course, a symbol of prosperity.
Mid Qing dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Side table, c. 1700 - 1800's hardwood
late Qing dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Side table, c. 1700 - 1800's hardwood
Mid-Qing dynasty (c. 1700-1800) Chinese hardwood side table with characteristic ‘cracked ice’ patterned carved openwork lattice shelf.
Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Cabinet carved red lacquer and gilded pine
This exquisitely carved red lacquer and gilded pine cabinet is rich with narrative, plant and animal symbols and border motifs. The horizontal panels are carved with figures and symbols reading from left to right in four rows. The first row depicts a story of ‘happy retirement’, the second an episode from the Chinese historical novel ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’, plant and animal symbols representing the four seasons make the third row and the fourth row shows series of images of immortals and animals, including a pair of cranes, which represent longevity.
There are various motifs on the upper and lower borders of the cabinet which represent five wishes; affluence, longevity, success, progeny (having children) and joy.
The overall themes of the richly ornamented cabinet are wishes for wealth, success, joy, honour and longevity. The cabinet would have been considered a precious item of furniture and would have been placed within a room used by male members of the family as the panels express social honour, success and longevity.
Qing dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Pair of Horseshoe armchairs c. early 1700s rosewood
These Horseshoe shaped armchairs are beautifully constructed from several joined pieces of rosewood. The carved fretwork carvings which decorate the arms and the back of the chair are shaped in repeating ruyi patterns.
Mid Qing dynasty China Altar Table c. 1700 - 1800s hardwood
late Qing dynasty Altar Table
With clean lines and slightly raised flanged edges, the late Qing Dynasty altar table is a restrained, beautifully finished and sophisticated piece of furniture. The table is a fine example of the hand crafted construction techniques employed by traditional Chinese cabinet makers.
“The traditional Chinese cabinet-maker took pride in his workmanship, using only wooden pins if absolutely necessary to hold a piece together, rarely using glue and no turning. The use of metal nails was virtually taboo and glue was only permitted in certain applications, such as fixing an ornamental frame to a sunken panel. Only those considered unskilled used a turning lathe. A true craftsman carved all bars, uprights, cabriole legs, club feet and braces directly from the same wood as the item, in the one operation.
Carving was an art in itself and carried out generously as an integral part of the piece of furniture. The nature of the woods used, being both strong and elastic, allowed the finest carving and most complex joints.”
- Wayne Ricketts
Late Qing dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Provincial armchairs elm
late Qing dynasty (1644 - 1912) China Provincial armchairs elm
The square shaped provincial armchairs are uncomplicated in design, incorporating series of straight rods for the back and arm rests. These straight rods are in the style of bamboo, growing straight and tall. One of China’s most important natural products, bamboo provides building material for houses and scaffolding, raw material for paper and is used to construct countless everyday objects, from chopsticks, walking sticks and calligraphy brushes to pipes, firecrackers and musical instruments. Bamboo shoots are also considered a delicacy and are used in cooking and to spice wine.