Late Qing/Republic periodThe rectangular caned seat frame of mitred, mortise and tenon construction above rectangular panels, each section carved with a mythical split-tailed lion over band of lotus petals set off by a shaped apron of carved attendants bearing gifts walking through a landscape waterway, each reserve flanked by elegant phoenixes or further lions, the apron half-lapped and tenoned to leaf-form brackets over heavy thick cabriole legs and hoof feet, the separate back and side panels tenoned into the seat frame and richly carved as entourages from the left and right paying homage to a central scene depicting a gathering of Immortals in a grand mansion in the Western Paradise surrounded by landscape waterway of pavilions, bridges, and distant hills shaded by willows, pines and heavenly clouds, the exterior of the side panels carved with auspicious cranes and phoenix birds and further landscape and architectural settings, the scenes framed at the top by elegant phoenix birds centered on an imposing mythical lion, and extending to phoenix head arm rests. 21 3/4in (55.3cm) high (platform); 84 1/2in (214.6cm) long; 52in (132.1cm) deep; 45 1/2in (115.6cm) height of back panel,转到 Chinese Works of Art Go
注脚:清晚期/民國 紫檀羅漢床Provenance:Property of a West Coast Family, by descent來源：美國西岸家族珍藏The couch bed form as a low platform (ta) without sides can be traced back to the Han dynasty, (206BCE to 207CE) as a single-person low seat. Sara Handler records in her important article, "Comfort and Joy: A Couch bed for Day and Night", published in the Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Winter 1991, pp. 4-19, an early evolution of this form found in a screen excavated from the 484CE tomb of Sima Jinlong, showing a woman seated on a three-panel-backed platform, with the top rails of equal height. She further cites a couch recorded in the Yuan dynasty Shilin guangji with lower side railings, and Ming dynasty examples where multiple types exist, from plain, elegantly figured huanghuali back panels with rounded butterflied joints to elaborate and richly carved architectural masterpieces with elegant, doweled posts, ruyi-headed cut-out panels, and cabriole legs op.cit. p.10. She records the existence of elaborately carved vignettes on back and side panels in a circa 1700 album leaf illustration to the Jin Ping Mei housed in the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, op.cit., p. 16, fig. 18. Sometime, perhaps early in the course of its history, the ta, a seated platform, gained its added function as a vehicle for both daily activities and nightly repose chuang. See couch beds with richly carved panels in the Qing court collection, notably a zitan longwen chuang illustrated in Gugong Boyuancang wenwu zhenpin quanji, 54, Ming Qing jiaju (xia), no. 12, carved with elaborate kui dragons, a Qianlong hongmu luohan chuang carved with nine dragons, no. 7, and another zitan and nanmu chuang elaborately carved with landscape and figural panels, no. 9. The current lot is a fine and rare example of this complex history – the back and side panels carved with scenes of immortals in verdant landscape settings, framed by phoenix and dragons emerging from thick, wondrous clouds. See a smaller zitan luohan chuang from the Lin Muhe Collection of closely related subject matter published Fenghua Zaijian. Ming Qing jiaju shoucang zhan. Splendor of Style: Classical Furniture from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. National Museum of History. June 26 to September 5, 1999, pp 110-111.