Low Antique Lacquered Elm Sideboard, China, 1900

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This antique lacquered low sideboard in elm wood is a Chinese two-door cabinet with three drawers and panels painted with … Read more This antique lacquered low sideboard in elm wood is a Chinese two-door cabinet with three drawers and panels painted with bogu scenes. It originates from northern China, from the Qing dynasty, where elm was covered in orange lacquer to receive the painting.Bogu scenes (博古, “the antique regarded with learning”) depict collected objects — bronzes, porcelains, potted plants — set out on stands. This was the repertoire a prosperous household chose to declare itself cultivated: it tells no story, it displays a taste.The case is solid elm with mortise-and-tenon joinery. Two side doors flank a central body of three drawers. The pulls are iron rings on rosettes, with brass corner plates at the angles of the doors, and the piece stands on stirrup feet.Each door carries a painted panel framed in a red moulding with cut corners: a porcelain vase of peonies on a pierced stand, a pot of orchids and a bowl with flowering plum branches. The drawers carry garlands of peonies (mudan 牡丹), the queen flower, emblem of wealth and honour; the plinth repeats the floral motif in a continuous band. The ground is a warm vermilion orange.The orange lacquer has lost intensity unevenly and leaves the elm exposed along arrises and edges. The painted panels hold their drawing well, with the green and the pink still legible. The contrast between the worn ground and the intact panels is the principal reading.

At 186 cm and 70 high it works as a dining-room sideboard, a living-room low cabinet or an entrance-hall piece. The orange makes it a chromatic focus: it asks for a pale wall and little around it.

Dimensions: Length 186 cm – Width 45 cm – Height 70 cm. Style: Painted Chinese. Materials and techniques: Elm wood; hand-forged iron hardware and brass corner plates; mortise-and-tenon joinery; orange lacquer and hand-painted decoration. Place of origin: China. Period: Qing dynasty. Date of manufacture: Circa 1900. Condition: Good. Original orange lacquer unevenly worn; painted panels well preserved. Wear consistent with age and use. See less