Chinese Wardrobe with 2 Doors

Warm burled grain makes this cabinet's two doors look like polished tortoiseshell.

This wardrobe with 2 doors is from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 19th century. It is elm wood. Tibetans were traditionally semi-nomadic and owned few personal furnishings, so most Tibetan furniture stood in monasteries, and some of it was carted over the Himalayas to India as monasteries were destroyed. The form is a tall cabinet with two flat doors framed by rounded stiles. Reddish brown finish with swirling grain. A shaped apron with small curved feet sits below, and a plain top overhangs slightly. It is 51 inches long, 25 deep and 87 high.

All that figure and not a carved line needed.