VOC-Style Chinese Huanghuali Document Box with Engraved Brass Mounts

This fine wooden writing box is of huanghuali wood (海南黄檀), and engraved brass mounts. It is a scarce example of an early Chinese-made wooden writing box in the colonial Dutch style and most probably was made for the Dutch East Indian Company (VOC), or its agents.

It brings together the classic form of a Dutch VOC document box more commonly associated with the VOC-Dutch officialdom of Batavia and Sri Lanka, in combination with rare Chinese hardwoods. It is well made – it has been constructed with tightly-fitting dovetail joins.

The wood is solid and lustrous with a rich patina. It has a strong grain with alternating light and dark streaks.

The box has fine engraved brass mounts – at each corner, plus there is an engraved key plate, cast brass handles on either side with associated engraved plates, numerous brass rivet covers, and inside, there are engraved brass hinge straps. The main brass elements have stylised cloud or ruyi form, underscoring the Chinese provenance. These are engraved with stylised lotus and peony blooms.

The box retains its original key and lock, which still works.

The box also retains its two original internal wooden filing trays, both of which can pull out.

A similar box was offered at Christie’s in 2011.

Such boxes were used by colonial Dutch officials in India, Sri Lanka, the East Indies (present-day Indonesia) and elsewhere. Senior officials of and merchants in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) were required to routinely send written communications about trade, local political developments, culture and any other events or observations deemed potentially useful for the Company’s interests. Usually everything had to be copied three or four times (Veenendaal, 1985, p. 85). Accordingly, portable writing cabinets and boxes were much in demand in late seventeenth and eighteenth century Batavia, India and Sri Lanka.

The involvement of the Dutch in China was somewhat brief. A milestone was the Battle of Liaoluo Bay. It took place in 1633 off the coast of Fujian, China, and involved the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Chinese Ming dynasty’s naval forces. The Dutch fleet under Hans Putmans, the governor of the Dutch settlement on Formosa or Taiwan (which was under the control of the VOC’s headquarters in Batavia) had attempted to control shipping in the Taiwan Strait. But southern Fujian sea traffic and trade was protected by a fleet under the Chinese Zheng Zhilong, hitherto a pirate leader and a late recruit to the Ming administration’s cause. (The Dutch were keen to control shipping in the area for trade reasons but also because it enabled them to cut Manila’s communications with Macao and China. Ultimately, the Portuguese were bettered by the Dutch in Asia because they developed a far more extensive system of intra-Asia trade.) Zheng Zhilong was victorious and thereafter and with the defeat of other Chinese pirates, he held uncontested hegemony over the China trade. The VOC learned to accommodate and trade with him, and he grew to become the wealthiest merchant in China.

The Dutch were unable to expand their interests in China as a consequence, and had to settle for their presence on Formosa. It was from here that they were able to engage in the China trade, sourcing items that had been brought across from the mainland. But even this ended in 1662, when the Dutch were forced from Taiwan altogether. Thereafter, the Dutch had to deal in China-made goods via Chinese merchants in third countries.

Huanghuali (which means ‘yellow pear tree flower’) is rare and now largely extinct in China. There are believed to be fewer than 10,000 pieces of huanghuali furniture worldwide. The wood is a high-density wood, with a high oil content that protects it from humidity. Its grain is beautiful, and the surface feels soft to the touch.

The most beautiful huanghuali items of furniture were produced by cabinet-makers in China’s lower Yangtze river basin during the golden age of Ming Dynasty furniture in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The wood was much prized and always was expensive. It was reserved for furniture constructed for the court and for the wealthy and elite scholarly class.

The box here is in excellent condition. There is no warping. What might be an old split in the hinged top is closed and stable. The grain of the wood is particularly beautiful. Remarkably, its internal trays are present and intact. Overall, this is a very fine example.