Beijing-Style Furniture: Origins in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

Beijing style furniture originated from the Ming and Qing dynasty. Together with Guangzhou style furniture and Suzhou style furniture, they are known as the three major factions of the classical Chinese furniture. This is Dacheng County, Langfang, Hebei Province, which is 160 km from Beijing. It is the birthplace of Beijing style furniture. Beijing style furniture was created drawing upon the essence of Guangzhou style and Suzhou style furniture. It gradually developed a unique style of its own. As for today's Beijing style furniture, it might be ever-changing in appearance, but its core structure, tenon and amortize, remains unchanged. Since the imperial family in the Qing dynasty has a preference for furniture made of ranch sandalwood and paddock wood, the Beijing style furniture was mainly made from these two woods. This is Ye Shuangtao, the master of folk arts and crafts in Hebei Province. He has been working in this field for three decades and has always insisted on designing furniture on his own. The major production procedures for Beijing style furniture include timber selection, timber cutting, drying, carpentry, polishing, and varnishing. And the tenon and amortize structure during the process of carpentry is the most important of all. It is also the part in which Master Ye has been exploring and innovating. Before making the tenon and amortize structure of the furniture, the timber must be planted on the flat surface at the right angle. In ancient times, this work was done by carpenters using their hands. The carpenter would cut the timber into the needed size for production. This step can help save a lot of time compared with the old practice. A tenon and mortise structure is made up of convex tenon and concave mortise. Thus, the two wooden components could be combined into one piece. It will become a tenon and mortise structure. This quality will fundamentally determine the quality of the whole piece of furniture. The furniture produced hundreds of years ago can still remain intact to this day, totally relying on the stable and secure tenon and mortise structure. Different tenon and mortise structures are used on different pieces of furniture. Right now, there are over 80 kinds of tenon and mortise structures that are worth studying. Tenon and mortise structures are also a basic form. In fact, there is still a lot of room for imagination. I believe that in the future, we can inherit and promote better tenon and mortise structures. Now, most of the Beijing style furniture production has been mechanized. But for the parts that the machine cannot do, people still need to do it by hand. Some special sections must be polished carefully by workers using sandpaper. When carving the decorative patterns for those very elaborate and fine parts like feathers, it still needs workers to carve with knife stroke by stroke to create the rough shape first. After the furniture is assembled and polished, it is ready for furnishing. This step is exactly the same as it was a few hundred years ago. After the furniture is varnished with some cotton wetting, it should be placed in a specific room for drying. During the process, there are special requirements for temperature and humidity. Through repeated furnishing and drying, it can ensure that the varnish would fully penetrate into the wood. Chinese people have a special feeling for wood. From the big structure like house and ship to the small items like bowl and chopsticks, they have chosen different kinds of wood for making them. Today, with the reappearance of a retro trend, Beijing style furniture, artistically featuring nobility, elegance and dreamlike beauty, still attracts China and the world. It is an extremely prominent treasure of Chinese history.