Low Antique Carved Fir Sideboard, China, 1900

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This antique carved low sideboard in fir wood is a Chinese four-door cabinet with a relief-carved front and an overhanging … Read more This antique carved low sideboard in fir wood is a Chinese four-door cabinet with a relief-carved front and an overhanging top. It originates from north-western China, from the Qing dynasty, where mountain fir was carved with the gouge on solid board.The geometric repertoire of this front — diamond lattice, quatrefoils, interlaced circles — points to the Chinese north-west, the belt of the Hexi corridor and the Tarim basin. It is a vocabulary shared with the Islamic ornament of the Silk Road cities, and foreign to the figurative decoration of the Han interior.The case is solid fir with mortise-and-tenon joinery. The top, of considerable thickness, overhangs the sides. Four panel doors open onto a compartmented interior, and the back is closed with vertical boards.The four panels alternate diamond lattices with quatrefoils and tracery of interlaced circles, each framed above and below by friezes of short flutes. A frieze of small pointed arches with leaves runs along the upper rail and the plinth repeats the quatrefoil lattice at smaller scale. Green pigment remains in the depth of some grooves, the trace of a lost polychromy.The fir is left bare, a very pale honey tone, the carving softened by generations of handling. The top shows open knots, separated joints and marks of use. The surface has not been restored.Its height of 63 cm places it as a living-room low cabinet, a television base or a gallery piece. The dense carving and pale tone work well in minimal and wabi-sabi interiors.

Dimensions: Length 182 cm – Width 41 cm – Height 63 cm. Style: Carved Chinese. Materials and techniques: Fir wood; mortise-and-tenon joinery; relief carving; traces of green pigment. Place of origin: China. Period: Qing dynasty. Date of manufacture: Circa 1900. Condition: Good. Bare wood, carving softened by use and open joints on the top. Wear consistent with age and use. See less