I “inherited” a 19th century Chinese made desk. This desk belonged to my wife’s great grandfather who was a missionary in China. The desk had been “stripped” to prepare it for refinishing many years ago and it basically fell i to a pile of pieces. I received the desk as the pile of pieces. I have been able to mostly figure out how the puzzle goes back together but this desk is not done with typical western joinery or construction techniques. Does anyone have any experience in repairing old Chinese pieces?
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Those slots along the perimeter visible in the photo would indicate to me that the top was intended to be removable and once reassembled just sits there ,no adhesive. But I don't see a top. Or doors ,drawers,side panels or anything that says"desk" to me. Is it all there? What is the intended purpose of that assembled frame? It appears either too large for the lower sections and not large enough for to have anything to do with the top.. The photo does not show much. Position the parts and sections as best you can figure out where you think they go and then take a picture. Detailed closeups of the mystery jointery would be helpful.
You are correct that not all of the pieces are in the picture.
The "desk" consists of two lower vertical units with one drawer each and the "desk top" does indeed sit on top of the lower units indexed by the wooden tabs. The desk top has four drawers. There is also a "foot rest" that fits between the lower vertical units.
my question about this desk is that the drawers unlike a typical western desk, have a rabbet cut into the front a back of the drawer units but the sides seem to be secured by no rabbet but by using some sort of a tape and glue.
Additionally, the drawers seem to be painted inside with a reddish material that looks like a heavy body stain and all of the corners are painted black with a similar stain. Any idea what that finish could be?
The drawers are fabricated with a soft wood and the drawer fronts and most of the desk frame seems to be made of rosewood or some other very dense heavy wood. Although the joinery is very detailed with amazing tenons and triangular notches, many areas of the frame have very crappy wood with knots and defects and seem to be filled with a cement-like filler material. Any idea what that material could be?
Finally, the "rosewood" did not appear to have any discernable finish on it. Could it simply be an oil finish? But the areas that have been puttied to fill the defects would not be hidden by an oil finish.
I will send additional pictures to show these areas but this highlights my questions about the construction of this piece and how to deal with the unusual construction issues.
It would make sense that it is a rosewood, something like dalbergia olivera that they would have and used extensively. I figured it was rosewood or mahogany -otherwise ,why go to the trouble to ship it? I couldn't tell from the picture. The finish your talking about could be lacquer. As to the bit about the tape I haven't a clue. The casework and internal not seen components are often if not always done with cheaper material and sometimes crudely done. It's almost always a quaranteed sign that the thing was done by hand. That's true of a lot of western antiques as well. Just done well enough to do its job, why put a great deal of effort and cost into something that no one sees? The more complicated the outside the more crude the inside.. time is money everywhere..you don't get paid until it's done. We build with machines mostly now so there's not that much more effort or time to make the bottom side of the table top smooth and shiny. Different if your doing things by hand.
It sounds like a really interesting piece. Most Rosewood anything now is pretty much off the table with CITES rules , it could actually be valuable. You need to check that out. I'd call Butterfields or someone before I hacked at it. You do one wrong thing and you half the value, do some more and half that!
I have a rule of thumb --that things are valuable until I actually have one....maybe you'll have better luck!
Do you have any other reason to believe the age other than it was great great grand dads? It could have been someone else's great grand dads before he got it.
I was standing on a street in Kathmandu ,all the buildings were brick and of a similar style. None of them were particularly remarkable but one building caught my eye. I commented to the person with me that that building is really old. Someone local overheard me and said "600." I said ,"really ,600 years old!" He said no, it was built in 600! It was completely intact in everyday use. They have some really old stuff over there.
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