Buying Antique Chinese Furniture in Hong Kong

Ming and Qing Furniture Styles and Woods

Nov 18, 2009 Valery Garrett

Hong Kong is a great place to buy antique Chinese furniture. Elegant Ming chairs or a converted Qing wedding cabinet to hold a TV, all here for the choosing.

Furniture is sourced from all over China. Some dealers send the pieces to workshops across the border, where they have more space to clean and restore the pieces. Others prefer to have their own workshops in Hong Kong where restoration is done under close supervision.

Long established dealers include Grace Wu Bruce Co Ltd, 701 Universal Trade Centre, 3 Arbuthnot Road, Tel: 2537 1288; Altfield, 248-9 Prince's Building, Tel: 2537 6370, and Zitan, G/F, 52 Graham Street, Tel: 2523 7584.

Buying Antique Chinese Furniture in Hong Kong, Furniture styles

Until the Tang dynasty (618-906AD) sleeping, working and eating all took place at ground level using low pieces of furniture. Later, by the Song dynasty, high form furniture like stools and chairs developed and was used by everyone. Refinement over the following centuries led to the Ming and early Qing dynasties becoming the golden age in Chinese furniture.

Ming furniture is simple and clean in design. It is scarce, since it is over 400 years old, and not so long ago old furniture in China was broken up to reuse the wood. Chinese craftsmen of this period could not be surpassed. A sophisticated system of joinery meant two pieces were dovetailed together, without the use of nails or glue, then a small peg inserted into the join to make a stable joint.

Ming chairs, like the upright horseshoe or yoke back ones, are very elegant, while folding chairs were used by officials when travelling. A scholar’s desk had a top which lifted off two side parts which held drawers. This meant it could accompany the official on his travels. Display cabinets held books or small items such as porcelain or snuff bottles. Square tables were used for dining, while long rectangular tables were for practising calligraphy or Chinese painting. Beds were canopied and often had drawers to hold possessions.

Buying Antique Chinese Furniture in Hong Kong, Types of Wood

Much of the best furniture was made from hardwood huang huali, (yellow flower pear wood) which has a very fine texture with colour ranging from pale honey to dark reddish brown. Zitan, tzi tan, is another hardwood, dense and heavy, and prized as it is now extinct. It is distinguished by fine silvery cobwebs on the surface of dark purplish black wood. Jichiumu (chicken wing wood, as the grain resembled the neck feathers of a chicken), and ying mu (burl wood cut from a large knot or twisted root) are other popular hardwoods.

In theory, hardwoods are from deciduous trees and softwoods from coniferous trees. But 'softwoods', used to describe Chinese furniture refers to miscellaneous woods indigenous to China and include elm, willow and walnut as well as cedar, cypress, pine and camphor wood. Blackwood was the name given by westerners to 19th century decorative Chinese furniture but the term has no real meaning. Actually a rosewood, the commercial name for the wood of several tropical trees, the colour is reddish purple often streaked with black and further blackened to popular taste. Hong mu, literally redwood, is a general term now in use.

Buying Antique Chinese Furniture in Hong Kong, Late Qing and Hybrid Pieces

Late Qing dynasty furniture is plentiful and includes country style furniture and so-called provincial pieces although they were also used in Beijing and other major cities. Other kinds of furniture are stools, kitchen cabinets and wedding cupboards painted red or green with large circular brass fittings. Mostly made from soft wood, they are less expensive than hardwood.

Inexpensive pieces of furniture can be easily acquired but these are often hybrids, made up of parts from several different pieces of furniture. There is a constant demand for these ‘decorator' pieces from the late Qing dynasty and most dealers specializing in furniture have a steady supply. Some pieces can be altered to suit today's life style to make a coffee table or a cupboard to hold a TV.

The copyright of the article Buying Antique Chinese Furniture in Hong Kong in S Asia/China Travel is owned by Valery Garrett. Permission to republish Buying Antique Chinese Furniture in Hong Kong in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.