Square stool with S-braces, Huanghuali wood Late Ming to early Qing (1600 – 1700)

The frame top comprises of four stretchers with line mouldings wojiuosian, on the edges and with rounded corners. The legs also with moulded edges, join the top and base stretchers in pyramid joins. Small feet are at the corners of the base. The stool was drilled for soft seat and is now restored with old matting. There are two supporting stretchers underneath. C-curved braces are tenoned into the legs and these stretchers. All the structural members are thumb-moulded.

Hong Kong, 1995 – 1996, Hong Kong Museum of Art, “In Pursuit of Antiquities: Thirty-fifth Anniversary Exhibition of the Min Chiu Society”
Singapore, 1997 – 1999, Asian Civilisations Museum, “The Chinese Collection”

Hong Kong Museum of Art, In Pursuit of Antiquities: Thirty-fifth Anniversary Exhibition of the Min Chiu Society, Hong Kong, 1995, p. 261
Grace Wu Bruce, Chan Chair and Qin Bench: The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture II, Hong Kong, 1998, pp. 70 – 71

Similar examples:
Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ching Dynasties, Random House, New York, 1971, p. 197 plate 107 for a pair of very similar design, in the collection of Charlotte Horstmann, the former owner of many piece of huanghuali furniture now at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
Grace Wu Bruce, Ming Furniture Through My Eyes, The Forbidden City Publishing House, Beijing, 2015, p. 163 for a pair of stools also of cube form but without S-braces

An unusual stool of cube form, constructed in the same manner but in a small scale as the early seat platform which predated beds with legs. Very different from other Ming stools, it is extremely rare in surviving examples of classic Chinese furniture.