A rare ornately carved huanghuali horseshoe-back armchair 17th / 18th Century

the five-member crestrail terminating in rounded hand-grips, set on rounded straight backposts and 'goose-neck' front posts continuing through the seat frame to the straight legs of circular section secured by lobed and cusped aprons on all sides, secured by equal-height foot-stretchers on three sides, the rounded seat-frame superbly carved along all four sides, with a beaded upper edge, pair of confronting qilong with single-horned feline heads and bifurcated tails, each tugging at a central lingzhi spray with their mouths, the three other sides with vegetal scrolls and grass sprays, with mock-metal cusped strapwork molding at the corners

It is rare to find chairs with carved seat-frames, particularly on all four sides including the back.  The corners are also carved with mock-metal-strapwork in imitation of baitong mounts found on other examples of Ming furniture.  Compare a pair of armchairs in the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, with dragons on the front aprons and tendrils on the side, illustrated in R.H. Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, no. 15; and a zitan pair with similar decoration sold at Christie's New York, 16th September 1998, lot 56.