# Rising knowledge: a lecture refreshes your understanding of ancient furniture materials

**Published by:** [Waynev](https://paragraph.com/@waynev/)
**Published on:** 2022-05-03
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@waynev/rising-knowledge-a-lecture-refreshes-your-understanding-of-ancient-furniture-materials

## Content

In June this year, Jiade Wenku and Mr. Zhou Mo jointly published the atlas of Chinese ancient furniture materials, a “reference book” on furniture materials, which has attracted many high praise once it was published. In this book, Mr. Zhou traced in detail the various materials used in ancient Chinese furniture, and corrected some erroneous ideas and views circulated in the industry over the years. This is another masterpiece about the materials used in ancient Chinese furniture, and it will certainly become a textbook text. ——Yang Juan, editor in chief of Jiade Library Atlas of Chinese ancient furniture materials During the Jiade Dianya art week on October 27, Jiade library was very lucky to invite Mr. Zhou Mo to bring a special lecture on the theme of “viewing things with ‘I’ - the history and habits of the utilization of wood used in Chinese classical furniture”. Mr. Zhou Mo, lecture site of jiadedian Art Week Before the lecture, Mr. Zhou quoted a classic and philosophical passage from Dickens in a tale of two cities: This is the best era, this is the worst era; This is the age of wisdom, this is the age of stupidity; This is the time of faith, this is the time of doubt; This is the season of light, this is the season of darkness; This is the spring of hope, this is the winter of disappointment; There is everything in front of people, there is nothing in front of people, people are stepping on the road to heaven, and people are going to the gate of hell. This classic is a very good exposition of our current social situation, including the current situation of the world, or the current situation of cultural relics collection. Mr. Zhou Mo, lecture site of jiadedian Art Week This lecture made the on-site guests gain a lot of real materials about furniture materials. We can’t help finding that some of our familiar furniture knowledge is actually wrong. View things with “I” Beautiful things, regardless of ancient and modern, furniture materials are the same. We should look directly at these beautiful things in front of us with an ordinary, peaceful, pleasant and equal attitude. I like Bai Juyi’s poem spring breeze very much. The spring breeze starts with the plum in the garden, and the cherry, apricot, peach and pear bloom second. Shepherd’s purse flowers and elm pods are deep in the village, and the spring breeze is coming for me. In addition to these beautiful flowers, those seemingly insignificant shepherd’s purse flowers and elm pods hidden in Shencun also cheered and said happily: the spring breeze is also coming for me. Therefore, for natural things, regardless of height, no beauty or ugliness, no length. The same is true for wood, including red sandalwood and yellow pear, elm, beech and fir. We should not first look at its material and value, but at its artistic level. In 2016, Mr. Kou of Jiade and I had dinner together. He said, can you write a book on furniture materials? At that time, I said I was very interested. This is my strong point. I asked him what he wanted? He said: get to the bottom of the matter. “Let them speak for themselves”, that is, let the wood and furniture express themselves, rather than me to evaluate its height and its quality. Including the “I” in the title of the lecture “viewing things with ‘I”, which is not the “I” of myself, but an unbiased attitude that is completely expressed and spoken by the furniture material itself. Lecture site Start with “a young knowledge” Although many books on the research of ancient Chinese furniture and materials have been published, in fact, the research on ancient Chinese furniture, especially the research on the materials used in ancient Chinese furniture, is a very young knowledge, which should have started in the last 30 years. Several basic conceptsAncient furniture or classical furniture?I remember that when the book huanghuali was published, it had been grinding back and forth for five years for some basic concepts. The book huanghuali starts with ancient Chinese furniture and is deleted by the editor. She said it was Chinese classical furniture. I’m not right. My research scope is the wood of ancient Chinese furniture, not classical furniture. Furniture is a classical concept. Including our topic today is classical furniture, which should be ancient classical furniture.About mahoganyMahoganyPeople often say that what I do is mahogany furniture. In fact, this statement is wrong, including the concept of “mahogany Ming style furniture”. Mahogany is a late concept. In the literature, the word “mahogany” officially appeared in the archives of the palace manufacturing office on February 23, the eighth year of Qianlong.In the book “Atlas of ancient Chinese furniture materials”, I have expounded a lot about mahogany. In fact, mahogany does not refer to a certain kind of wood. There should be more than two kinds of wood testing and analysis according to the remains of ancient mahogany furniture. Ancient mahogany furniture is mostly from Qianlong or later, which is not long, and there are not many Ming style or close to Ming style. Some scholars believe that mahogany is close to red sandalwood and is a substitute for red sandalwood after its source is exhausted. According to the analysis of red sandalwood inventory in Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties, this theory is difficult to establish.Chicken wing wood or babbler [x ī Ch ì] wood?BabblerIts name first appeared in the records of water and soil near the sea by Wu Shen Ying of the Three Kingdoms. It is a kind of waterfowl swimming in bamboo forests and streams. Its feathers have five colors and are very beautiful. In the Ming dynasty or before, the wood with such patterns was known as “Jichi wood”. After entering the Qing Dynasty, it was called “chicken wing wood”. The two names appeared in the archives of Qianlong manufacturing office at the same time. In fact, including those in Wang Shixiang’s book, what he wrote was also a wood tree. But many of the pictures in our auction company are still written about chicken wing wood. Chicken wing wood should be a very late concept.Part of wood furnitureNatural distribution and wood characteristicsYou know what? The most expensive wood in the world, the best and most beautiful wood in China, is concentrated in the following figure. In this narrow area, between 5 and 20 degrees north latitude, from the South and west of India in the west to the Philippines in the East, including Japan’s Ogasawara Islands. It’s such a narrow area.It can be said that the precious varieties of Chinese ancient furniture materials we know are concentrated in this narrow area. Red sandalwood, yellow pear, ebony, rosewood, sandalwood, including aloes, are all produced in this place.So why are these trees concentrated in such a narrow area?Interestingly, this area also produces the world’s best quality precious metals, which can be mined

## Publication Information

- [Waynev](https://paragraph.com/@waynev/): Publication homepage
- [All Posts](https://paragraph.com/@waynev/): More posts from this publication
- [RSS Feed](https://api.paragraph.com/blogs/rss/@waynev): Subscribe to updates