Antique Sideboard in Painted Pine, China, 1900

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This antique painted sideboard in pine wood is a Chinese two-door cabinet with pale lacquer and traces of floral decoration. … Read more This antique painted sideboard in pine wood is a Chinese two-door cabinet with pale lacquer and traces of floral decoration. It originates from northern China, from the Qing dynasty, where pine was primed in pale lacquer to receive brush painting.The two-door sideboard with a panelled plinth stood against the wall of the main room and held tableware and household linen. The painted face was the only one treated; sides and back were left in bare wood, a sign of a piece meant to be seen only from the front.The case is solid pine with mortise-and-tenon joinery. Two framed panel doors open onto a shelved interior, with iron ring pulls on rosettes. The plinth is resolved with two recessed panels and four straight legs of square section.Of the original decoration a glaze remains: pink peonies and leaves in a very muted turquoise green, dissolved over the cream ground until they read as patches of colour rather than drawing. In places the lacquer has flaked away and leaves the pine exposed.That wear is what the piece is about. The surface reads like an erased watercolour, with the pink and the turquoise emerging from the pale ground. There is no repaint attempting to recompose the drawing.Its height of 84 cm makes it a dining-room sideboard, an entrance-hall cabinet or a wide-corridor piece. The pale, faded tone sits especially well in light interiors of neutral palette.

Dimensions: Length 159 cm – Width 40 cm – Height 84 cm. Style: Painted Chinese. Materials and techniques: Pine wood; hand-forged iron hardware; mortise-and-tenon joinery; pale lacquer and hand-painted decoration. Place of origin: China. Period: Qing dynasty. Date of manufacture: Circa 1900. Condition: Good. Original lacquer and paint much faded, with flaking and exposed wood. Wear consistent with age and use. See less