Focus on Tibetan Furniture

In each edition of AT News, we will focus on a particular type of antique Chinese furniture or other Asian art form. We will provide an example with a piece from our inventory and offer it on a first come basis, at a special discounted price.

AT04-2-127: 19th C. Tibetan chest. Circa 1880, origin; Tibet.

Most Tibetan furniture was originally produced by monks and used in monasteries to store religious items. The pieces have a uniquely spiritual quality but are usually of a fairly crude construction. Typically, the furniture is painted using beautiful, colorful and meaningfully symbolic decorations such as flaming pears or eternal knots.

Favorite colors included gold, red and green. Fortunately, Tibetan furniture is increasingly being integrated into many different styles of home décor and we hope that a new book devoted solely to the subject, "Wooden Wonders; Tibetan furniture in secular and religious life", written by David Kaminsky, published in 2004, will generate the interest in Tibetan furniture that it deserves.

The piece of furniture featured in this newsletter demonstrates the simple form of a typical Tibetan chest. It is painted with vegetable-based paint, which has faded to a lovely patina. The sides of the cabinet are typically left plain because they were viewed as unimportant. The piece opens in the front and, as with most Tibetan pieces, the door openings are hidden within the construction. This piece, with its beautiful floral design, typical coloration and adequate storage space, would make a stunning entryway statement but could also be used in a variety of other settings.

If you are interested in this or other Tibetan pieces, please call us for a special price. We love Tibetan furniture and unfortunately it is becoming more difficult to find good pieces.

Focus April 2005