A RARE AND EXCEPTIONAL HUANGHUALI AND NANMU 'FU' CHARACTER YOKEBACK ARMCHAIR, GUANMAOYI Ming dynasty, 16th/17th centuryA RARE AND EXCEPTIONAL HUANGHUALI AND NANMU 'FU' CHARACTER YOKEBACK ARMCHAIR, GUANMAOYIMing dynasty, 16th/17th centuryThe wide crest rail tapering to swept-back rounded ends and supported by curved rails of oval section tenoned to the underside of the yoke and running through the seat to become the back legs, and flanking the c-shaped backsplat divided into three floating panel sections with a central well-figured nanmu burlwood panel set between a cut-out fu-character framed by a beaded edge and a u-shaped beaded apron, all flanked by elegantly barbed and cusped flange brackets running the length of the splat and tenoned into the seat frame, the s-shaped arm rests gently flaring to the handgrips and supported by elegant posts carved as a delicate vase holding a stalk of bamboo behind 'goose neck' braces with beaded stretchers, both tenoned in the side frame of the once soft-mat seat reinforced by a hard seat supported by paired bowed transverse stretchers, the front rails tongue-and-grooved to beaded, cusped and barbed aprons, the side stretchers tenoned higher than the back and footrest, with shaped aprons on three sides. Chair: 45 3/4in (116.2cm) total high; Seat frame: 19 1/2 x 24 3/4 x 19 1/4in (49.5 x 62.8 x 48.9cm). 明 十六/十七世紀 黃花梨嵌楠木癭攢靠背福字紋四出頭官帽椅Provenance:Nicholas Grindley, circular white label on the reverse, 10 May 1998Published:Curtis Evarts, 'From Ornate to Unadorned, A Study of Yoke-back Chairs', Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Spring, 1993, pp. 24-33, illustrated on page 26, figure 3來源：Nicholas Grindley古董行（見椅盤底部標籤），1998年5月10日出版：柯惕思（Curtis Evarts），《From Ornate to Unadorned, A Study of Yoke-back Chairs 》（可繁可簡：官帽及燈掛組椅個案研究），《Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society》（中國古典家具協會期刊），1993年春，頁24-33，第26頁，插圖編號3This remarkable chair is, at latest writing, reputed to be one of eleven known examples of its type, featuring the tripartite backsplat with inlaid burl panel under a fu-character with a u-shaped panel below, the bamboo and vase post supports and the inward set barbed and beaded apron. One is housed in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, illustrated in Robert D. Jacobsen and Nicholas Grindley, Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, (Minneapolis, 1999), pl. 9; one in the Hung Collection, illustrated in Chinese Furniture, One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, (New York, 1996), pp. 60-61, no. 10; two pairs formerly in the Richard Fabian Collection (one pair sold at Sotheby's New York on March 15, 2016, lot 31 and the other sold at China Guardian Beijing on November 17, 2019, lot 4636), illustrated in Curtis Evarts, 'From Ornate to Unadorned, A study of Yoke-back chars', The Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society,, Spring, 1993, pp. 24-33, fig. 4; one published in Curtis Evarts, A Leisurely Pursuit, Splendid Hardwood Antiquities from the Liang Yi Collection (Hong Kong, 2000), pp. 66-67, pl. 10, from the collection of Peter Fung; a pair now in a private American collection formerly in the collection of John Alex McCone, with huanghuali panel backsplats, another chair sold at Sotheby's New York on March 19, 2007, lot 305, now in a private collection. Evarts has later tied these eleven superbly crafted chairs to a total group of now twenty-four bearing all or a subsection of these decorative elements as individual commissions from a single workshop.The Cowles chair belongs as one of the best examples among this illustrious company and is rich with symbolic meaning. The combination of the stylized fu character with its wish for good fortune and its implied blessings, together with the vase and bamboo zhubao pingan posts, a rebus for " (bamboo) virtue brings peace" and the dynamic carved spandrels flanking the backsplat culminating in flowerheads under the toprail set the chair firmly as a sublime gift to commemorate an important life achievement.