Furniture Making Craftsmanship

01 · Historical Records

After the Kangxi era of the Qing dynasty, Ming-style furniture spread to England, France, and other countries, exerting a considerable influence on eighteenth-century European furniture. Some furniture of the Qing dynasty continued the style and craftsmanship of the Ming dynasty and is therefore also called "Ming-style furniture". Ming-style furniture in China today is produced mainly in Suzhou, Beijing, and Guangzhou; inheriting the fine traditions of Ming furniture, it has formed three major systems: the Su (Suzhou), Jing (Beijing), and Guang (Guangzhou) styles. The craft of Jingzuo hardwood furniture reached its peak during the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns of the Qing dynasty; after the Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns it gradually spread among the common people.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Ming-style furniture is the most famous category of traditional Chinese furniture: it achieved brilliant results in the history of ancient Chinese furniture and is regarded as the model of traditional furniture, while also occupying an important place in the history of world furniture. Building on the furniture-making traditions of the Song and Yuan dynasties, Ming-style furniture achieved great innovation in materials, processing techniques, styling, and structure. The craft uses hardwoods of great density and fine grain as its material—zitan (red sandalwood), huali (rosewood), hongmu (mahogany), wumu (ebony), tielimu, and jichimu (chicken-wing wood)—taking full advantage of their grain, texture, and luster, and striving for a simple, pure structure and dignified form free of superfluous ornament, suited to a wide range of uses and to the needs of the human body. Most praiseworthy of all, Ming-style furniture is built entirely on frames joined by mortise and tenon (sunmao), with the various joints ingeniously fitted together and not a single nail or drop of glue used; the resulting furniture is precisely constructed, solid, and sturdy, and has won the admiration of experts in the field around the world. Metal fittings made of white copper, red copper, or gilded metal—such as corner braces, hinges, and feet—are likewise of exquisite form and soft hue, matching the furniture so that each sets off the other. Ming-style furniture comes in a great variety of types, falling mainly into six categories: seating, supports, beds, storage pieces, racks, and screens. Chairs, stools, and drum stools belong to the seating category; incense stands, flower stands, tables, and desks to the support category; beds and couches to the bed category; boxes, chests, cabinets, and cupboards to the storage category; washbasin stands, mirror stands, and clothes racks to the rack category; and standing screens and folding screens to the screen category. At present, for various reasons—a shortage of hardwood raw materials, a workforce that is mostly elderly, and the relatively poor skills of young craftsmen—the production of Ming-style furniture has run into problems. In addition, the market has been flooded with counterfeit and inferior hongmu furniture, which has also caused difficulties for the production of authentic Ming-style furniture. The Jingzuo hardwood furniture craft was gradually formed in the making of court furniture during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Originating in Beijing, it has a history of three to four hundred years, and together with the "Suzuo" (Suzhou) and "Guangzuo" (Guangzhou) schools it is known as one of the three great schools of Chinese hardwood furniture. Jingzuo hardwood furniture is adapted to the dry climate of northern China; it emphasizes display effect and pursues weighty forms and imposing dimensions, giving rise to the graceful, grand, and richly luxurious Jingzuo style. The Jingzuo hardwood furniture craft combines practicality with artistry, integrating design, joinery, carving, wax polishing, and other processes so that precious hardwood is combined with scientifically sound mortise-and-tenon construction, dignified and elegant form, and beautiful carving, producing a sumptuous and refined artistic style. It achieves a perfect fusion of court art and folk art and has high artistic and scholarly value.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Jingzuo hardwood furniture craft is concentrated in the area of Beijing, which was the principal center of court furniture in the Ming and Qing dynasties; together with the Suzuo, Guangzuo, Jinzuo, and Ningzuo schools it is counted among the four great furniture traditions of the Ming and Qing periods. The craft uses hardwoods of great density and fine grain, such as zitan (red sandalwood), huali (rosewood), hongmu (mahogany), wumu (ebony), tielimu, and jichimu (chicken-wing wood), hence the name "Jingzuo hardwood furniture". Beijing Longshuncheng Chinese Furniture Co., Ltd. is the designated protecting institution for the project.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Ming-style Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship · Furniture Making Craftsmanship.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Ming-style furniture is a treasure of China's and indeed the world's furniture industry, with research value in many fields, including the history of Chinese and foreign furniture, the history of cultural exchange between China and other countries, the history of social life, and folklore. There is an urgent need to rapidly train high-level successors so that this precious traditional handicraft can be effectively transmitted and soundly developed. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, thanks to the state's active rescue, protection, and support policies, the Jingzuo hardwood furniture craft recovered and developed to a certain extent. With the development of the market economy, the production of Jingzuo hardwood furniture has fallen into increasing difficulty: senior technical personnel are lacking and the workforce has shrunk sharply. If it is not transmitted and protected as soon as possible, the traditional Jingzuo hardwood furniture craft will face the danger of being lost. Chong Guiyou (per the official records of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Han ethnicity, born in December 1949, a native of Dachang Hui Autonomous County, Hebei Province. Representative inheritor of the furniture-making craft (Jingzuo hardwood furniture craft), a third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. Technician of the Jingzuo hardwood furniture craft. He has served successively as apprentice, carpenter, chief of the inspection section, chief of the production section, chief of the supply and marketing section, restorer of antique furniture, and technical adviser to Longshuncheng. Building on the transmission of classical Beijing-style hongmu furniture craftsmanship, he has continuously advanced innovation in form, function, and certain handcraft techniques in response to the needs of the times. He once supervised the production of dining-car furniture for the presidential train of the Tanzania–Zambia Railway aided by the Chinese government. He participated in the production of the Tiananmen furniture for the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the crystal coffin cover for Chairman Mao, and other items. He has trained two apprentices, Zhang Jinqiao and Liu Yansong.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Xu Jianping 03-1318
• Zhongguiyou 03-1319
• Yang Xia 03-1320
• Cao Yunjian 04-1846
• Yang Jinrong 04-1847
• Huang Fuhua 05-2757
• Wang Zhaoqi

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Furniture Making Craftsmanship (Chongwen, Beijing) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Zhongguiyou · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗