Three chairs for huanghuali

Cheney and Mary Cowles are among the foremost collectors of Asian art in the United States. For more than 40 years, the Seattle-based couple have been putting together one of the most comprehensive collections of Japanese painting and calligraphy in private hands in the West. In 2019, they announced a landmark gift of more than 550 Japanese paintings, calligraphic works and ceramics to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art and the Portland Museum of Art. But, while Japan has been their primary focus, the Cowles have also acquired a considered collection of Chinese classical furniture, including some outstanding pieces of Ming Dynasty furniture made of huanghuali.

Huanghuali – literally ‘yellow flower pear’ – pieces are the jewels in the crown of Chinese furniture. It is a slow-growing wood, unique to the island of Hainan, that develops with age a glowing yellow-brown patina. It was first used as a material for furniture at the end of the 16th century. During the reign of the Emperor Longqing (1567-1572) in the late Ming period (1368-1644), China opened its markets, receiving, among other goods, an influx of tropical hardwood from Hainan and areas surrounding the South China Sea. These dense, hardwearing yet flexible timbers inspired craftsmen to create technically ambitious forms not possible in softer woods.

The woods were used as solid timber – not often as a veneer – using techniques dating back to the 12th century. Every detail of the joinery, down to the size and precision of the dowels, was exposed. The very dark zitan – another type of highly valuable and sought-after wood which particularly lent itself to elaborate carving – was, along with huanghuali and jiqimu, used for furnishings for the Imperial Court. But the warm huanghuali, with its much valued ‘mountain peak’ and ‘ghost face’ patterns in the grain, was also commissioned by high ranking officials and wealthy merchants, encouraging craftsmen to develop a distinctive lexicon of forms and types of furniture to suit their restrained tastes. Especially fine timbers would be treated like natural wonders, and set off to advantage as unadorned tabletops or cabinet fronts. This elegant style, with its generous proportions, was then perpetuated through the pattern books of masters and their apprentices into the early Qing period (1636-1912), before changing fashion and the scarcity of this precious wood caused craftsmen to turn to other materials, and to recycle elements of older furniture into new forms. Today, huanghuali is also sought after by connoisseurs for its honey-like scent, which is thought to repel insects. However, because the wood is so slow-growing, there is a very limited supply. It is the rarity of this beautiful wood, combined with the technical skill and refined style of the furniture-makers, that draws collectors.

A rare and exceptional huanghuali and huamu bamboo-style horseshoe back armchair, Quanyi 17th/18th century. Estimate: $250,000 - $350,000

A rare and exceptional huanghuali and Nanmu ‘Fu’ character yokeback armchair, Guanmaoyi Ming dynasty, 16th/17th century. Estimate: $350,000 - $500,000

Cheney Cowles was originally inspired to collect while a law student in San Francisco, where his aunt introduced him to the Asian Art Museum. He explained that, besides his focus on Japanese art, “I had a general interest in Chinese art, starting in the late 1960s. Viewing the huanghuali furniture in the Metropolitan Museum in the early 1970s perhaps spurred my interest in the material. Also, a book on Chinese furniture by Gustav Ecke was an early influence, followed by purchase of Robert Ellsworth’s book on the subject in 1976.” Gustav Ecke’s magisterial volume Chinese Domestic Furniture, which was first published in 1944, reflects the pioneering interest shown in huanghuali by a number of European collectors and scholars in the early part of the 20th century.

Robert Ellsworth, meanwhile, was a noted New York dealer in Asian art, once dubbed ‘the king of Ming’ by The New York Times. He became a leading figure in drawing the attention of significant US collectors and museum curators to ancient jade and Ming and Qing dynasty furniture. Indeed, it was the purchase by the Metropolitan Museum of Art of a suite of Ming and Qing furniture from Ellsworth, early in the 1980s, that led to the creation of the Astor Chinese Garden Court, which was modelled on a Ming-era scholar’s courtyard.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the market for Chinese classical furniture really took off in the US, the Cowles began to focus on this field. Leading experts such as Nicholas Grindley, Peter Lai and Grace Wu Bruce enabled them to acquire exceptional pieces, just as the great museum collections at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and other institutions were being established. Cowles is clear that he and his wife “were drawn to the elegant designs”, but that they “bought only examples that we would use in our home”. This included cabinets, bookcases and tables, which beautifully set off their collections of Japanese art.

The most important pieces offered at Bonhams during Asia Week New York in March, however, are three outstanding chairs: two yoke-backed and one horseshoe-backed. Of exceptional rarity, they are dated to the 16th to 18th century, when craftsmen were at their peak of creative invention, producing unique variations on classic themes, each one a technical masterpiece and a virtuoso display of the beauty of the wood.

Emma Crichton-Miller is a freelance writer and Editor-in-Chief of The Design Edit.

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Browse all lots in our auction on 20 March in New York. For enquiries, contact Dessa Goddard on dessa.goddard@bonhams.com or +1 415 613 3383

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