LONDON.- A Set of Four Huanghuali Folding Chairs were sold for £5,296,500 at Bonhams Fine Chinese Art sale in London today (Thursday 9 November).

The chairs are the only known version of this form and type, and are widely considered a masterpiece of Ming Dynasty furniture. They had been estimated at £100,000-150,000. In a packed saleroom, the bidding war finally came down to a tense battle between a bidder in the room and one on the phone with the chairs finally knocked down to the phone bidder.

The chairs came from the collection of the distinguished Italian diplomat, Marchese Taliani de Marchio. From 1938 to 1946, Taliani served as Ambassador to the National Chiang Kai-shek Government in Nanjing. Despite spending only eight years in China, Taliani was a shrewd and gifted connoisseur who assembled a collection of exceeding rare and important pieces that conveys the rich history of Chinese decorative arts.

A Bonhams spokesperson said, “The fierce and lengthy bidding reflected the huge importance and rarity of these chairs and is a testament to the Marchese Taliano de Marchio’s incredible eye.”

An important and exceedingly rare pair of Huanghuali Tapering Cabinets from the Ming Dynasty from the same collection, estimated at £200,000-300,000, sold for £1,688,750.

The important set of four huanghuali folding chairs which may be considered a masterpiece of Ming dynasty furniture making, is exceedingly rare in form and type, with no other identical single chair, or indeed a set, known to have been published. Ming dynasty folding chairs were made in two main forms: horseshoe-back shape, of which there are many extant examples, and in square back form, of which very few survive. Of the square back form two main types are known – without arms as the present lot – and with arms, also known as 'Drunken lord's chair'. Dr Gustav Ecke in his important article 'Wandlungen Des Faltstuhls: Bemerkungen zur Geschichte der Euraischen Stuhlform' ('Development of the Folding Chair: Observations on Euroasian Chair Forms'), ibid., pp.36, concludes the set of chairs are Ming dynasty in date.

Folding chairs such as the present lot would have belonged to the elite and used at home, in the garden and when travelling, which would also explain their relative scarcity due to wear (particularly when made from softwood). These were used for formal and informal occasions, when on military campaigns or enjoying leisurely pursuits. Despite their rarity today, these square back folding chairs often appeared in illustrated Ming dynasty novels and were illustrated in the late Ming pictorial encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui (三才圖會) as yi die zhe (椅疊折, literally 'folding chair'); see a related Ming dynasty folding chair but in softwood with a yokeback top rail which belonged to King Philip II of Spain (1527 - 1598) and is still in the palace of El Escorial.

For Ming dynasty variations of square-back huanghuali folding chairs, see Grace Wu Bruce, Living with Ming - The Lu Ming Shi Collection, 2000, pp.88-89, no.16 (with yokeback top rail and without a central splat); two but with arms of the 'Drunken lord's' type, are illustrated by S.Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Berkeley, California, 2001, p.70, fig.5.9, and R.H.Ellsworth et al, Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, no.26; and a fourth example with a yokeback, is illustrated in R.H.Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ching Dynasties, New York, 1971, pl.26.

Most extant examples of Ming dynasty folding chairs made from huanghuali are of the horseshoe shape type; see for example one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Huanghuali Furniture, Beijing, 2008, pl.8; and another, with a similarly shaped splat back, dated as Yuan dynasty, illustrated by Wang Shixiang, Classic Chinese Furniture – Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, Bangkok, 1986, pl.57; for further examples see S.Handler, ibid., pp.60-71, (compare the closely related chilong decoration on the front seat stretcher, the foot stand and edged back splat on a folding armchair, Ming dynasty, from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, Renaissance California and the example from the collection of John W. Gruber, New York, figs.5.1 and 5.4).