A huanghuali bookshelf, Qing dynasty | 清 黃花梨書架

Bookcases were essential pieces of furniture in the scholar's studio and library, used both for storing books and displaying antiques. According to Zun sheng bajian [Eight discourses on the art of living] written by Gao Lian (1573-1620) and first published in 1591, a shujia [bookcase] ‘should be used for placing one's favourite books, which could be Confucian classics, poems, Buddhist scriptures, or for important medical literature and calligraphy. At leisure, books provided not only enjoyment, but food for life’. As a result, in Ming and Qing society, bookcases and their contents became symbolic of their owner's refinement and elevated lifestyle.

The use of such bookcases is depicted in an illustration from a late Ming woodblock printed edition of Gujin xiaoshuo [Stories old and new], see Lau Chu-Park, Classical Chinese Huanghuali Furniture from the Haven Collection, Hong Kong, 2016, p. 244, who also illustrates a similar bookcase, pl. 58. Another similar example is illustrated in Karen Mazurkewich, Chinese Furniture, A Guide to Collecting Antiques, North Clarendon, 2006, p. 135, fig. 340. Another example was sold at Christie`s New York, 20th March 2014, lot 2251.