Pair of sloping-stile wood-hinged cabinets on stands, Huanghuali wood Late Ming (1573–1644)

The cabinet top of standard mitre, mortise and tenon, tongue-and-grooved floating panel construction. There is one dovetailed transverse brace underneath. The edge of the frame begins and ends in a narrow flat band and there are exposed tenons on the short sides of the frame top. The four main stiles, double tenoned into the top with one tenon exposed, are rounded on the outside, squared on the inside and beaded where they meet the side panels and doors. The doors are of standard mitred frame construction and the outside stiles finish on extended dowels which fit into sockets in the underside of the frame top and the horizontal shaped stretcher mortised and tenoned into the main stiles below the doors. The single board floating panels have four dovetailed transverse braces tenoned into the door frame. Inside the cabinet, there is one removable shelf which rests on the dovetailed transverse braces of the side panels as well as one lower section which constitutes a shelf and two drawers with huangtong plates and pulls. Beneath the shaped stretcher below the doors is a plain straight apron with ear-shaped mitred spandrels, tongue-and-grooved into the legs and butt-joined to the underside of the stretcher. Similarly shaped aprons are on the sides. Rectangular huangtong plates are curved and shaped to fit the door frame members. There are square lock receptacles and shaped door pulls. The doors and side panels are all of well-figured single board panels. The stand, the lipped-edged top of mitred, mortised and tenoned frame construction has a recessed tongue-and-grooved panel supported by one dovetailed stretcher underneath. Four slightly splayed legs are double tenoned to the top. There are two drawers at the top and a shelf at the bottom, both with beaded-edged, cloud-shaped spandrelled aprons below. The aprons on the sides are plain and have earshaped spandrels. The original clay and lacquer coating remain almost completely intact on the back, the top and the undersides.

Macau, 2003, The Macao Museum of Art,“The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture”
Hong Kong, 2007, Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong,“Feast by a wine table reclining on a couch: The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture III”
Hong Kong, 2012, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre,“Grace Wu Bruce presents a choice selection of Ming Furniture from the Dr S Y Yip collections”

Grace Wu Bruce, Feast by a wine table reclining on a couch: The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture III, Hong Kong, 2007, pp. 88 – 91
Grace Wu Bruce, Grace Wu Bruce presents a choice selection of Ming Furniture from the Dr. S. Y. Yip collections, Hong Kong, 2012, pp. 38 – 39
Grace Wu Bruce, Ming Furniture Through My Eyes, The Forbidden City Publishing House, Beijing, 2015, p.227

Similar example:
Extant examples of pairs of sloping-stile wood hinged cabinets on stands are exceedingly rare with only one published example to-date, those of slightly lower height exhibited at the National Museum of History, Taipei, in the exhibition Splendor of Style and published in the catalogue, National Museum of History, Splendor of Style: Classical Furniture from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Taipei, 1999, pp. 160 – 161

One of the most ingenious and beautiful designs of classic Chinese furniture is the sloping-stile, wood-hinged cabinet. The four main stiles are recessed from the corner of the top and slope gently outward in a subtle, almost imperceptible splay. This simple design feature gives the cabinet its refined elegance and a sense of balance and stability.
The doors, with extended dowels on both ends, fit into sockets in the cabinet frame members and act as hinges. Free from the necessity of applied hinges, the clean lines of the cabinet are not interfered with.
Sloping-stile wood-hinged cabinets placed on stands may have been used exclusively in damp regions like the Jiangnan area, accounting in part for their rarity.