Huanghuali and Zitan: A Collector's Guide to Hardwood Furniture

Tip the chair forward and look underneath. The seat frame that has been waxed and polished for three hundred years on top is, underneath, the colour the timber actually is: a dry honey brown with a ribbon of darker figure running through it, and four rows of small round holes where a soft woven seat was once laced to the frame. That underside tells you more in ten seconds than the front of the chair will tell you in an hour.

This guide walks you through the two timbers that define the field, how to tell them apart and from their substitutes, the joinery that holds a classic piece together, the forms worth knowing by name, what the market rewards, and the specific alterations and fakes that turn up on hardwood furniture today.

The two timbers

Chinese classical furniture is collected largely by its wood, and two woods carry the field.

Huanghuali, "yellow flowering pear", is a rosewood of the Dalbergia group, grown on Hainan and the southern mainland. Its colour ranges from pale honey to a deep reddish amber, and its glory is figure: swirling, translucent grain, dark feathered streaks, and the round knots collectors call ghost faces. Cabinetmakers of the Ming and early Qing chose it for exactly this, and built shapes that display the surface rather than compete with it.

Zitan, red sandalwood of the Pterocarpus group, is the opposite object. It is so dense that it sinks in water, so dark that a polished surface reads as purple-black in daylight and only shows its colour against a lamp, and so finely grained that carving holds a crisp edge no other furniture timber will take. Fresh-cut it is orange-red and oxidises towards black over years. Because the trees are small and slow-growing, large single-board zitan surfaces are rare, and the timber was closely associated with imperial workshops.

Below these two sit the woods you should also learn: jichimu, "chicken-wing wood", with its feathered stripe; tielimu, a coarse ironwood used for large structural pieces; and nanmu, a softer timber whose gold-flecked figure was prized for scholars' furniture and interiors. None carries the market of the first two, and all three are honest timbers.

Telling them apart

Wood identification by eye is a skill, and it is learned on real pieces rather than from photographs.

• Weight in the hand. Lift one end of a small table. Zitan is startlingly heavy for its size; huanghuali is dense but liftable. A piece that feels light for its bulk is usually neither.
• Colour against a lamp. Take a dark piece to a window or shine a torch across it at an angle. Zitan shows a wine-red or purple cast in the grain where flat light shows only black.
• Grain scale. Zitan's pores are so fine the surface looks almost poreless, often marked by fine S-shaped or hair-thin lines. Huanghuali's figure is large, looping and highly visible.
• Scent. A rubbed or freshly abraded spot on huanghuali gives a distinct sweet resinous smell. Zitan is nearly odourless.
• The unfinished surfaces. Look at the backs of cabinet doors, the undersides of tops and the insides of aprons. Original timber and later replacement components rarely age the same way.

Beware the catch-all trade name hongmu, which covers a wide group of rosewoods of very different value, and beware any single test used alone. The answer comes from weight, colour, pore structure, scent and construction agreeing with one another.

Joinery is the argument

A classic piece is held together by wood alone: mortise and tenon in a great many variations, mitred frames, tongued and grooved floating panels, and wedges. Glue is a helper, not a fastener, and nails have no place in the structure.

Two consequences matter to a buyer. First, panels float in their frames so they can move with the seasons, which is why an old tabletop panel often shows a shrinkage gap at one edge and no split down the middle. Second, a piece can be dismantled and reassembled, which is how furniture travelled, and also how components from several pieces end up married into one object.

Learn a few names and you can read a catalogue entry properly: bawangcheng, the "giant's arm brace" that ties a leg diagonally to the underside of a table instead of using stretchers; luoguocheng, the humpback stretcher that rises in the middle; the waisted and waistless constructions that divide table forms; and the recessed-leg construction where legs splay inward from the ends. Much of the standard English terminology descends from the work of Wang Shixiang, whose published study of Ming furniture organised the field and is still the reference collectors argue from.

The forms worth knowing

The classic repertoire is small, and value clusters in a handful of forms.

• Seating. The yokeback armchair with its sweeping crestrail, the southern official's hat chair with everything tucked flush, the horseshoe-back armchair with a continuous curved rail, and the low back stool and bench that furnished ordinary rooms.
• Tables. The painting table, wide and unencumbered by drawers; the recessed-leg altar table with upturned ends; the half-moon and square tables that split and join for different occasions.
• Storage. The tapered round-corner cabinet, which closes by its own weight on wooden pivot hinges, and the square-corner cabinet with metal mounts, often topped by a matching upper chest.
• Beds and frames. The canopy bed and the deeper alcove bed, effectively small rooms, and the daybed that furnished a study.
• Small objects. Basin stands, clothes racks, lampstands, book chests and the boxes that lived on a scholar's desk alongside the four treasures of the studio.

Pairs matter. Chairs were made and used in pairs and sets, and a surviving pair is worth considerably more than twice a single.

What the market pays for

Prices in this field have been driven for two decades largely by buyers in mainland China and Hong Kong, and the hierarchy is consistent even as levels move.

Timber first: huanghuali and zitan far above everything else. Then form and proportion, where the plain, taut, early-looking pieces outrun the elaborately carved ones among Western and traditional collectors, while heavy carved Qing zitan has its own strong following. Then originality of surface and components, then size, then pairs and sets, then provenance. A piece with an old Western collection history, ideally published or exhibited, carries a premium, and the documentation behind that history is worth as much as the label on the underside.

Condition is graded differently from porcelain. Honest wear, a dry surface and old repairs are acceptable and often desirable. Stripping, heavy refinishing and replaced structural members are not. Restoration that removes original surface removes value in a way that a stable old crack does not.

Fakes, marriages and improvements

Very little in this field is a wholly modern object passed off as old. Most of the trouble is subtler.

• New furniture from old timber. Recycled beams and dismantled pieces provide genuinely old huanghuali for newly made forms. The wood dates; the object does not. Look for consistency between the age of the timber and the wear on the surfaces that hands and feet touch.
• Marriages. A cabinet top from one piece on a base from another, or a set of four chairs assembled from two pairs. Compare grain, colour, patina and the exact profile of mouldings across every component.
• Improvements. A plain piece carved after the fact to make it saleable, or a large table cut down to a fashionable size. Carving that cuts across the grain pattern rather than following it, and mouldings that stop short, are the signs.
• Replaced parts. Soft woven seats replaced with hard board, new stretchers, new feet where damp rotted the originals. Look inside the seat frame for the original lacing holes.
• Wrong timber. Substitute rosewoods finished dark to pass as zitan, or stained to read as huanghuali. Weight and pore structure will not be argued with.

Ask for the piece to be turned over, and ask what has been done to it in the last fifty years. A dealer who answers that question precisely is telling you the object is worth the precision.

Buying, and getting it home

Furniture is the least forgiving Chinese art to buy at a distance. The pieces are heavy, the condition detail lives on surfaces a photograph flattens, and shipping costs enough to change the arithmetic on a mid-priced lot.

If you are bidding, read the condition report against every joint in the images and ask the specialist directly about replacements, as set out in the guide to buying Chinese art at auction. Budget for crating, and plan the route into the room before you bid, because canopy beds and large cabinets are dismantled and reassembled for a reason. The practicalities of shipping, insurance and storage deserve settling in advance.

Cross-border movement is the other constraint. Several of the timbers involved sit under international trade controls on protected species, and Chinese cultural relic rules apply to objects above certain ages; the guide to export rules and cultural relics covers the shape of the problem. Get the paperwork confirmed before money moves.

Living with it

Hardwood furniture is meant to be used, and use is what has given the good pieces their surfaces. Keep it away from radiators and out of direct sun, which fades huanghuali towards grey and opens joints. Aim for stable humidity rather than a particular number. Wax sparingly with a hard microcrystalline wax, never silicone polish or oil, and dust with a soft dry cloth.

A piece moved into a centrally heated room will shift in its first season. Let it settle before deciding a joint has failed, and use a restorer who works with hide glue and traditional joinery rather than screws and epoxy. Furniture sits well alongside the other things a study collects, from scholars' rocks to inkstones and teapots, which is very much how these rooms were furnished in the first place.

Common questions

How can I tell huanghuali from other rosewoods?

Use several tests together. Huanghuali is dense but not extremely heavy, ranges from honey to reddish amber, and shows large looping figure with dark feathered streaks and round knots. A rubbed spot gives a sweet resinous scent that most substitutes lack. Check unfinished surfaces, the undersides and the insides of aprons, where stain and polish have not evened out the colour. If a single board is very wide, be sceptical, because the trees were not large. When a purchase is serious, ask for a specialist opinion rather than relying on your own eye.

Is zitan more valuable than huanghuali?

Neither timber outranks the other by rule; the piece decides. Zitan is rarer in large sizes, was closely associated with imperial workshops, and supports the fine carving that Qing court taste favoured. Huanghuali dominates the plain, early forms that Western and traditional Chinese collectors have prized for a century. A fine plain huanghuali chair can exceed a heavily carved zitan piece of similar size, and the reverse happens too. Form, proportion, condition, originality and whether the piece survives as a pair usually matter more than which of the two woods it is.

Does a repair destroy the value of Chinese hardwood furniture?

No, but the type of repair matters enormously. Old repairs made in traditional joinery with matching timber are part of the object's life and are broadly accepted. Replaced structural members, new carving added to a plain surface, and stripped or heavily refinished surfaces all reduce value sharply, because they remove original material and original patina. A stable old crack in a floating panel is normal and usually not a fault at all. Ask what has been replaced, and get the answer in writing on the invoice.

What is a soft mat seat and why does it matter?

Many classic chairs and daybeds originally had seats of woven cane or silk cord laced through holes in the seat frame, a construction called ruanti or soft seat. These wore out and were frequently replaced with a solid wooden board. Look under the seat: rows of small original lacing holes, and a rebate for a sub-frame, show what was there first. An original or correctly restored soft seat is a strong indicator of an early piece, and a hard board dropped into a frame built for lacing is a sign of later alteration.

Further reading

• Chinese carved lacquer — the parallel tradition in a wholly different material.
• Chinese jade carving — another field where material and workmanship set the price.
• How to value Chinese art — how timber, form and condition become a number.

Browse the collection

Hardwood furniture is a subject we write about rather than one we stock. What Kiln and Ink does sell hangs on the wall above it: limited-edition archival giclee reproductions of the twentieth-century Chinese ink masters, hand-numbered and issued with a Certificate of Authenticity. A single ink scroll over a plain painting table is, more or less, the room these pieces were built for. Browse the collection.