Pair of square corner kang cabinets, Huanghuali wood Late Ming (1573 – 1644)

The top of mitre, mortise, and tenon construction with a flush, tongue-and-grooved, floating panel supported by two dovetailed transverse stretchers underneath. There are exposed tenons on the short sides of the frame top. The four square uprights, pyramid-joined to the top, are moulded and beaded where they meet the side and back panels. This series of moulded and beaded decoration are echoed on the stretchers joining the uprights on the sides and back, thus framing the tongue-and-grooved, floating panels on the sides and back. The two removable doors between the central removable stile are of standard mitred, mortised, and tenoned frame construction with two mitred horizontal stretchers forming three sections on each door. The inset panels are decorated with beaded-edged cusp aprons. Inside the cabinet, there is a central section which constitutes a shelf and two drawers with baitong plates and pulls. Beneath the beaded-edged, shaped stretcher below the door is a beaded-edged, curvilinear apron with carvings of entwining tendrils, tongue-and-grooved into the legs and butt-joined to the underside of the stretcher. There are two similarly shaped beaded-edged aprons but without carving on the sides, while the back one is plain. There are four beautifully shaped baitong hinges and a central baitong plate with square lock receptacles. The door pulls and plates are also made of baitong.

Washington D.C., 1997 – 2001, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Grace Wu Bruce, Chan Chair and Qin Bench: The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture II, Hong Kong, 1998, pp. 126 – 127

Similar example:
Grace Wu Bruce, Sublime and Divine Chinese Ming furniture, Hong Kong, 2014, pp. 72 – 75 illustrate a plain pair without decorations on the doors

Cabinets of this size were probably meant for use on the kang. Surviving examples made in huanghuali wood are very rare, a pair even more so. This pair is made with beautifully grained huanghuali wood, used throughout the cabinets.