Xu Jianping

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1970 he entered the Suzhou Rosewood Carving Factory, where he studied classical furniture design under the veteran artisan Xu Wenda and received instruction in technique from the rosewood carving artist Lu Hansheng. Within the regional tradition and school record of Ming-style Furniture Making Craftsmanship in Suzhou, Jiangsu: Suzhou Ming-style furniture, with its characteristics of rigorous structure, flowing lines, exquisite craftsmanship, and luminous lacquer finish, stands in a class of its own thanks to its distinctive artistic style and local character. Suzhou Ming-style furniture refers to hardwood furniture made since the mid-Ming dynasty by skilled craftsmen of the Jiangnan region centered on Suzhou, using imported timbers such as zitan (red sandalwood), suanzhi (blackwood), qizi (fine catalpa), and huali (rosewood); it is therefore also called "Suzhou Ming-style furniture," or "Su style" for short.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, of Han ethnicity, he was born in September 1954 in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. He is a representative bearer of Ming-style Furniture Making Craftsmanship, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is a Ming-style furniture making technician. From 1995 he served as director of the design office, chief designer and technical director of the Suzhou Rosewood Carving Factory Co., Ltd. He was the first to establish, within the classical furniture production process, a design step in which every stage is based on detailed working drawings and full-scale one-to-one mock-ups, and he standardized precise material dimensions and other specifications throughout the drawings, providing important guidance and regulation for the accurate transmission of Ming-style furniture making. He undertook the design and production supervision of major projects, including the large rosewood floor screen carved with dragons for the Premier's reception hall in the Ziguangge at Zhongnanhai, and the restored furniture for the Heavenly King's Palace of Hong Xiuquan at the Nanjing Museum of Modern Chinese History site. His representative works include Qing-style classical hall furniture and Qing-dynasty bamboo-joint scholar's chairs. Within the documented technical tradition of Ming-style Furniture Making Craftsmanship in Suzhou, Jiangsu: "Rigorous structure" means that the furniture is assembled entirely through mortise-and-tenon joinery, with attention to structural integrity and the balance of forces; "flowing lines" means that the furniture's appearance is dominated by line, with little carving; "exquisite craftsmanship" means that every process step—material selection, matching, joinery, sanding, and lacquering—is executed with refinement and is impeccable; "luminous lacquer finish" means that the furniture is finished entirely with the traditional raw-lacquer technique, through more than a dozen process steps of meticulous work, achieving an effect that seems lacquered yet is not. Design is the first process step in making Ming-style furniture: it covers not only the form but also the structure and carved patterns of the piece, and its quality rests entirely on the designer's originality. Joinery work, i.e., making the rough body (shengpi), follows a basic process that—apart from the mechanical machining in between—consists of four stages: marking out, truing the lines, assembly, and sanding. Carving follows the design drawings through grounding out the background, truing the border lines, scrolling, and carving the patterns, so that the bases are clean, the flowers and leaves are lively and sculptural, the layering is clear, and there is a sense of depth. Lacquering comprises 16 process steps in all: applying the raw-body coat, scraping the face lacquer, sanding with abrasive paper, and applying color; then applying the glue-size lacquer, rubbing down with abrasive paper and face lacquer; rubbing down with abrasive paper and wiping with lacquer; pushing the sandal-leaf face lacquer; pushing with sandal leaf; wiping with lacquer; and so on. In Ming-style furniture—whether chairs, tea tables, narrow tables, or bookshelves—the refined forms, well-balanced proportions, and clear lines fully express the cultural connotations and artistic temperament of the pieces. It uses structural components as decorative elements, fully reflecting the natural qualities of the materials; its refined, proportionate, and scientific mortise-and-tenon craftsmanship brings the furniture to a state of perfection. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "": "Archival Record of Process Steps": "Rigorous structure" means that the furniture is assembled entirely through mortise-and-tenon joinery, with attention to structural integrity and the balance of forces; "flowing lines" means that the furniture's appearance is dominated by line, with little carving; "exquisite craftsmanship" means that every process step—material selection, matching, joinery, sanding, and lacquering—is executed with refinement and is impeccable; "luminous lacquer finish" means that the furniture is finished entirely with the traditional raw-lacquer technique, through more than a dozen process steps of meticulous work, achieving an effect that seems lacquered yet is not.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2009, Xu Jianping was announced in the third batch of national representative bearers for Ming-style Furniture Making Craftsmanship, with Suzhou, Jiangsu as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of Ming-style Furniture Making Craftsmanship in Suzhou, Jiangsu: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2006 (batch 1), with Suzhou, Jiangsu as its declared area, and Suzhou Hongmudiaoke Factory Co., Ltd. as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Xu Jianping · National Representative Bearer Archive