PROPERTY FROM THE RICHARD MILHENDER COLLECTION A Very rare and large Chinese well-figured Huanghuali two-section four-door linen pressCirca 1760 Supported on a raised base with plain bracket feet, the lower section with beveled floating panels of square shape, below a slightly protruding divider below vertical rectangular doors with further beveled floating panels, all beneath a dentil cornice, the upper doors opening to reveal four sliding shelves, the sliders and drawers in camphor wood with huanghuali fronts, the lower doors revealing three sliding shelves above two drawers with Chinese brass swan-neck handles, internal lock-plates to all doors. 69 1/4in (163.2cm) high; 46 1/2in (118cm) wide; 22 1/2in (57cm) deep 十八世紀 黃花梨四門雙層立櫃 Provenance: Robert Seaver, New York, February 1985. The Richard Milhender Collection, Boston, Massachusetts, 1985-present Exhibited: Peabody Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, (now the Peabody Essex Museum), Chinese Export Art: Highlights of a Private Collection , 1986-1988 出處： 紐約 Robert Seaver，1985 年二月 麻州波士頓 Richard Milhender 藏，1985 年至今 展出記錄： 麻州塞勒姆，皮博迪博物館《中國外銷藝術：私人收藏精粹》，1986-1988 The linen press is the rarest form encountered in the canon of Chinese export furniture. It was a luxury item only suited for the largest apartment of the most senior director in Macau or the trading Hongs of Guangzhou (Canton). For a similar-form cabinet made for the Chinese domestic market, see Gustave Ecke's, Chinese Domestic Furniture , Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, 1962, p.134, no. 106 a. For a pair of huanghauli and padouk wood bureau cabinets, with similar solid-timber upper cupboard doors in an indistinguishable fine-figured wood, see Wooley and Wallace, Salisbury, England, UK, 8 January 2020, lot 169. Most George II and George III linen presses have large panel doors in the upper section whilst the lower section have visible drawers. This Chinese interpretation, in a somewhat linear Chippendale style with dentil cornice, can bepared to a Chippendale linen press at Paxton House, Berwickshire, which also employs molded panels to the doors and the choice of exemplary timber for the panels in the doors, see C. Gilbert, The Life and Works of Thomas Chippendale , London 1978, p.139, pl.249. The form here, however, more readily equates to the large 17th century Huanghualipound cabinets with two separable parts used at court, see W.Yi, et al., Daily Life in the Forbidden City , New York, 1988, p. 133, pl. 184. For another pair see Christie's, New York, 19 - 20 September 2013, lot 1566. See also a small Ming dynasty huanghuali pound wardrobe in four parts illustrated by Wang Shixiang, Classic Chinese Furniture , Hong Kong, 1986, no. 148; and another two-door cabinet with similarly figured huanghuali wood, Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, Nicholas Grindley and Anita Christy, Chinese Furniture, One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raym