Chinese Coffer with 4 Drawers & 4 Doors

Black lacquer cracked like old leather, with eight small drawers and doors below.

This coffer with 4 drawers & 4 doors is from Gansu Province, China, and dates to the 19th century. It is lacquered elm wood. As original period furniture became harder to find, restoration artists began salvaging fragments from incomplete pieces to make complete ones, and eventually full reproductions began to surface. Visible is a long cabinet with a row of four small drawers over four doors in two pairs. Round metal pulls dot the dark, crackled, uneven surface. A pair of thick legs holds the middle section. It is 75 inches long, 17.75 deep and 34.5 high.

It has the gloss of a well-worn boot.