In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were few old furniture in the Yellow Sea. Mr. Wang, the most authoritative scholar of furniture research in Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, listed and analyzed furniture in his book "Research on Ming Furniture", taking Su Zuo (made in Suzhou) as the object. Indeed, although there are schools such as Su Zuo, Jing Zuo and Guang Zuo in history, Su Zuo furniture is undoubtedly the most representative and tasteful Ming furniture, because it has a strong cultural heritage in the south of the Yangtze River. If you want to collect this kind of furniture now, you are looking for a rare treasure. It can only be seen in the Ming and Qing furniture exhibition halls of the Palace Museum in Beijing or the Shanghai Museum.
Rui Qian's book Huanghuali Furniture Collected in the Palace Museum 13 1 piece, we are not sure whether it is all sea yellow, and we do not rule out that some products are yellow (Vietnamese pears) or even grass pears (referring to national flower pears such as Myanmar and Laos). A few years ago, Wang Laoshao sold more than 70 pieces of old sea yellow furniture to the Shanghai Museum for a symbolic $500,000, which he accumulated all his life. On September 2 1 2006, Ms. Zeng Youhe, who lives abroad, donated seven pieces of huali furniture collected by her husband (Ike, the first author of China Huali Furniture) to Beijing Gongwangfu.
In addition, some of them flowed to the United States, Europe and other places long before liberation. For example, there is a Nelson Museum in California, USA, which specializes in collecting this kind of furniture. Others are treasured by Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan enthusiasts. For example, The Beauty of Huang Huali Furniture written by Hong Guangming, a scholar in Taiwan Province Province, always introduces 47 pieces of private furniture (some are obviously yellowed, such as the round-backed chairs listed on page 38). Therefore, only a handful of pieces in China are still in the hands of collectors.
How about settling for the second best?
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, a certain amount of old furniture was still widely used, with high cost performance. Hainan Island (an area in Guangdong Province before the 1980s) can still see some traces: some are in some commercial squares and antique cities in Haikou, and some are still in the homes of businessmen and ordinary people in some counties and cities in Hainan. There are eight immortals tables (including six immortals tables and four immortals tables), round-backed chairs, plush chairs, official hat chairs, ladies' boudoir chairs, desks, incense tables and cases.
Here are two kinds of folk furniture, which can better reflect Hainan folk characteristics, namely, small boxes and cabinets in their early forties, commonly known as rice cabinets and cash cabinets. According to Zhang Zhiyang, an expert on Huang Huali, it is usually a box for storing valuables at home. It is impossible to make such complicated and simple furniture with expensive and scarce pears in order to lock a hundred Jin of rice. There is also a leisure lounge chair, which was introduced by educated youth in Guangdong, Shanghai and Fujian during the Cultural Revolution. Although they do not belong to the category of Ming furniture, they still have the value of collection and use. For example, the reformed rice cabinet can be converted into a bedside table, a lampstand and a bonsai table. Lounge chairs can be seen everywhere and are regarded as luxury fashion items for leisure people in Beijing's upper class. Especially those with good quality are more collectible.
The author saw a reclining chair being renovated in Feng's workshop, a famous producer of the Yellow Sea in Haikou City, and immediately collected it. When finishing and polishing (don't burn wax, once the wax is burned, the pungent smell will be greatly reduced. Unfortunately, most sea yellow furniture on the market is waxed, in order to pursue brighter colors and more obvious texture. The whole body is purple avocado, face to face, faint purple light, floating fragrance. As soon as I lie down at night, I sleep peacefully in the fragrance. Its production level is extremely high, with the same color and texture, orderly arrangement, dignified shape, exquisite structure, smooth lines and extraordinary temperament. This makes people feel infinite: even in the chaotic Cultural Revolution era, there are still such superb skills and idealists who strive for perfection. This kind of reclining chair has high aesthetic value and is elegant with Ming furniture.
Guangzuo furniture is characterized by fully demonstrating Hainan's regional advantages, that is, the materials are generous and the blank is slightly thicker. Of course, it is slightly less elegant and agile than Suzuo. These old furniture can be roughly divided into two categories. First, it was made by local craftsmen in Hainan, which is relatively vulgar. Many of these things were taken down as raw materials. There is also a craft that is quite literary and not inferior to the mainland. This is because most people in Hainan Island immigrated from Fujian, and there are many skilled craftsmen. For example, the carvings in Qiongshan County are quite fine, and there are obvious traces of Puxian carpentry. There are also Yachengfu (now Sanya City), Qiongzhou Prefecture (now Haikou City) and other places with prosperous culture. Many wealthy families who came back from the mainland brought skilled craftsmen, and the furniture they used was also typical of the Ming and Qing dynasties in the mainland.
There are also some local officials, businessmen and landlords who buy Cantonese-style and Soviet-style furniture from the mainland. For example, the author has collected two tables of Eight Immortals. One is a carved tribute table in the middle of the Qing Dynasty: 8×8cm legs and feet carved palindromes, beautifully carved flowers (meaning flowers are rich, poems are handed down, and grains are abundant), and Luo Guoyang Yang Line. The whole table is made of a purple avocado, which is tall and big, showing the domineering and massiness of the Qing Dynasty, as well as the solemnity and auspiciousness of the tribute table before the gods. Second, in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the imitation Ming lattice table: waist, ice plate edge, Luo Guojian, inverted horseshoe shape, is also a whole yellow-red avocado, with simple workmanship and a scholarly atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty. On the other hand, the shape of the backrest and armrest is a bit narrow, not as stretched as Sue. This is probably why plagiarism can't get home.
Talking about historical value, two points can be introduced together. First of all, can you confirm its exact date? But are there any new works to replace the old ones? Unlike calligraphy and painting, old furniture has dates on it, and most of them have no production time; Unlike porcelain, we can dig through the kiln site, scrape off some raw materials, and conduct carbon fourteen analysis (two years ago, a foreign buyer bought a painting suspected of Leonardo da Vinci, and after scientific determination of its paper and pigment, the analysis was more specific, and finally it was determined to be the work of Leonardo da Vinci's studio). In addition, the manufacturing technology of furniture, especially the basic forms of common varieties, often lasts for hundreds of years without major changes. For example, the top chairs, armchairs and hanging chairs in Ming-style furniture must have been shaped in the Song Dynasty.
It is even more uneconomical to replace the old with new works. Most cultural relics are deliberately made old, confusing the fake with the real. Only the old furniture of Haihuang, no one wants to be old. This is because "flour is more expensive than bread". Now the old sea yellow material that can be used as furniture costs thousands of yuan per catty. It is even more uneconomical to use such expensive old materials to copy the old ones and turn them into cultural relics. For example, the two square tables mentioned above, one old material and one new work, cost at least twice as much as now. What's more, this kind of old material is hard to find now. Even if it is found, it will either be sold by others or it will cost a sky-high price. Therefore, there are only old materials and new works, that is, some old folk furniture is disassembled into materials, and new works are not used instead of old works to pretend to be cultural relics.
(2) Artistic value
There is a saying about Ming-style furniture in Cambridge Pictorial History of China: "Its elegance has never been surpassed." This is an appropriate evaluation. This is the lasting charm of Ming and Qing furniture. As early as the Ming Dynasty, Jin Shen said in the Preface to Chronicles of a Long Story: "Counting beds has a certain degree, devices have a certain style, positions are fixed, precise and convenient, simple and simple, clever and natural." Ming-style furniture designed and produced by scholars in Jiangnan region contains the aesthetic style of pursuing elegance and exquisiteness by Ming scholars. This style is: simple modeling, smooth lines, scientific rigor, fine workmanship, diverse decorative techniques and exquisite materials, which are unparalleled in the world.
The style of Ming-style sea yellow furniture, Jingdezhen porcelain, cloisonne, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin and other Zhang Hui novels, Tang Xianzu's Handan dream, Peony Pavilion, Dong Qichang, Shen Zhou and other literati paintings, Xu Wei's and Wang Duo's calligraphy, and winding and graceful garden architecture are all isomorphic.
At present, the places where China can imitate Huang Huali furniture in Ming and Qing Dynasties are Haikou, Xianyou in Fujian, Taishan in Guangdong and Beijing. It is natural that modern people can do what ancient people can do. But why, as foreigners say, "its elegance has never been surpassed"? The key is today's impetuousness, hypocrisy and unkindness, while ancient people are all cultivated by culture and have a peaceful and rigorous mentality.
Modern people's means of production are modern, which is incomparable to the ancients. For example, computer drawing can be very accurate, and it can also be 100% to copy the explicit formula; Modern tools such as planers and saws are incomparable to the ancients. In ancient times, only green swim bladders were used to reinforce tenons and mortises, while modern glue is much more advanced. In ancient times, only the cut grass could be used for polishing, and no matter how it was polished, the glass-like smooth surface produced by replacing thousands of sandpapers could not be polished ... But now the manufacturers are all migrant workers with low education as the main body of design and production, and the boss even has some research, so he has little time to participate in it personally. The ancients kept improving, especially for the imperial court and dignitaries, and they were even more rigorous. Now manufacturers are looking for a word "money". How can such a world style create exquisite works of art comparable to those of the ancients?
For fans and buyers, how many experts can you find among 10 thousand people who really know how to distinguish between true and false? So there is a market for shoddy goods. However, the author still found the excellent production of individual manufacturers. For example, in the first Huang Huali Association in China-Haikou Huang Huali Association, there are several skilled craftsmen who explore and pursue the spirit of retro innovation. At the establishment site of Huang Huali Hometown Association in Haikou, the author saw a pair of round-backed armchairs made of purple avocados, with vivid textures. They didn't cooperate or make up, and even the sitting board was unique and beautiful. This is the most beautiful pair of round-backed armchairs I have ever seen. Its shape and size are strictly in accordance with the round-backed chairs of the Forbidden City and Shanghai Museum, not to mention polished; Coupled with the material, it is also unmatched by the ancients.
According to the author's observation and analysis, the sea yellow used in the Ming Dynasty was mostly collected from the eastern part of Hainan, with loose material, yellowish color and even whitening. Because it is aniseed, the texture is generally straight, so anyone who encounters furuncle is commonly known as "grimace", that is, marvel is "the most vivid and lovely" and is regarded as a typical feature of sea yellow. In fact, the beauty of sea yellow really reflects not the east, not the yellow pear, but the central and western regions, but the avocados such as purple and red.
Avocados were rarely used in ancient times because they grew in mountainous areas where mining was difficult, and the materials were mostly tortuous and small. Therefore, it is difficult for us to see the beautiful image of ancient furniture in the Yellow Sea in the introduction. If there is, it has also been dubbed by the author with various nice names. Such as Clouds of Canglang, Concentric Circles and Unpredictable. (For example, the mirror box panel of P70 in Hong Guangming's Beauty of Furniture in Huang Huali, the front screen of three-screen single-board enclosure of arhat bed in Wang Ming Furniture Research P 155, and the furniture collected by Ruiqian 13 1 back screen of four-headed armchairs on the cover). And these patterns are everywhere in western avocados, which are more beautiful than them! At present, there is almost no shortage of sheet metal, and old avocado materials taken from tree heads and roots are used for furniture making. However, this has achieved beauty beyond the Ming and Qing Dynasties. A headline of Shanghai Museum was used as the cover of an album. The author saw at the scene that the whole body is a straight line of huanghuali, and there are even curved handrails, which do not reflect the strange beauty of the pear.
This kind of imitation new work is rare in the market and hard to find. Even if the price is higher, it was ordered by people of insight as early as before production. If you want to have a set, it depends on chance.
(3) Appearance (material)
The appearance of Huang Huali furniture is investigated by materials, colors and patchwork.
The most important thing is how much to make up Huang Huali (scientific name Dalbergia odorifera) is also "ten Dalbergia odorifera". The older people get, the more empty they become. In addition, the world's material has basically bottomed out, and it is rare not to make up. Also called "no compensation for non-sea yellow". The author's collection of Amin-style old Eight Immortals before the middle of Qing Dynasty, three plates (the largest in China), straight cut and a whole piece of wood, has been intact for more than a hundred years, and this appearance has almost reached the peak. At present, in some places and some manufacturers, a pile of chairs is made of at least 200 pieces of new dry materials, and there are many insect eyes, white leather for coloring and concave powder for filling. This kind of "patchwork clothes" can't be bought at any lower price. Maybe in a few years, it will fall apart and become a pile of scrap iron. A certain place in Guangdong specializes in this kind of thing, and the price of a set of round-backed chairs is only a few hundred thousand. I also saw its trace in the market and buyers.
Materials. Generally speaking, oriental materials are far inferior to western materials, new materials and dry materials are far inferior to old materials and mountain materials (that is, they are cut down in the mountains and corroded by their white skins), and Huang Huali is far inferior to avocado.
Color. Oriental materials are basically yellow. Avocados in the midwest are divided into several colors, such as purple, red, brown, black and their mixed colors. Purple is the most expensive and favorite. "The Forbidden City", "Purple comes from the East" and "Red turns purple"!
Purity. It's almost hard to count on "one tree and one device" now. No matter how elegant it is, it is the same place of origin and the same color. The purer the appearance, the higher the appearance. For example, making a painting with Huang Huali is more valuable than splicing more expensive but colorful avocados.