Folding stool, Huanghuali wood Late Ming (1573 – 1644)

The curvilinear shaped seat rails with beaded edges were drilled for a woven seat and has now been restored with woven ropes. The round legs are mortised, tenoned and lapped to the seat rails and base stretchers, all with exposed tenons, and are hinged by metal rods passing through holes in their centre and secured on both sides by chrysanthemum shaped baitong plates. Inlaid rectangular plates with ruyi heads extend beyond these hinge plates for further reinforcements. A shaped footrest with small hoof feet and curvilinear shaped apron is mortised and tenoned to the two front legs and base stretcher. There are also baitong straps with ruyi heads on the four legbase stretcher and leg-seat rail joins for reinforcements.

Hong Kong, 1995 – 1996, Hong Kong Museum of Art, “In Pursuit of Antiquities: Thirty-fifth Anniversary Exhibition of the Min Chiu Society”
Denver, Colorado, 1997 – 1999, Denver Art Museum
London, 1999, Institute of Contemporary Art, “Grace Wu Bruce presents Ming Furniture from the Collection of Dr. S. Y. Yip”

Hong Kong Museum of Art, In Pursuit of Antiquities: Thirty-fifth Anniversary Exhibition of the Min Chiu Society, Hong Kong, 1995, p. 262
Grace Wu Bruce, Chan Chair and Qin Bench: The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture II, Hong Kong, 1998, pp. 76 – 77

Similar examples:
Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, vol. II, Hong Kong, 1990, plate A41 for a similar example, now on display in the Shanghai Museum
Nancy Berliner, Beyond the Screen: Chinese Furniture of the 16th and 17th Centuries, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1996, pp.92 – 93 for a carved tendrils example
Robert D. Jacobsen and Nicholas Grindley, Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1999 also for a carved example

The design of this folding stool has ancient origins. From as early as the Han dynasty, the name huchuang has been used to refer to stools of this design. Easily folded for carriage or storage, folding stools were widely used from ancient times to now.
This refined Ming piece made in precious huanghuali wood has baitong metal mounts. The woodblock print illustration to Lienu Zhuan (Biography of women in Ancient China) by Ming dynasty painter Qiu Ying shows an attendant carrying a folding stool behind his master on horseback, suggesting their usage as travelling seats as well as stools for alighting from horses.