How to Examine the Drawers of a Piece of Chinese Furniture

YuQing Zhao: Hi! My name is YuQing Zhao here is my friend John, welcome to our video series. Behind us are two pieces of furniture and they’re in the same tack wall, they’re in similar style and same tack of hardware, similar furnish. Can you tell which ones new and which ones old? Now I wanted John to show you from one side which one old and which one new. John Rogers: Okay as YuQing as suggested, the drawers often author a real good clue to as which is which. In some other way the drawer itself but it is the extent to which the drawer has been full bad and use. So the first thing that you want to look for is actually not the drawer itself but whether there is anywhere over by the slide part where the drawer will come out and I can feel a tremendous amount of where over here. Where I mean is that slant down, if you look at this drawer itself I can tell that there has been so much where on this drawer slide that the slide itself as been replace a restoration that is very similar to what happens on American piece of furniture when the drawers have been use to a variety of extent. What over here on this drawer now, first of all I feel absolutely nowhere on this case piece so this drawer cannot have been in this case period case piece very long and add all, because this is have been use that is not that as where. If you look at the bottom of it this drawer looks simply brand new and there is nowhere or whatsoever along this side. Also, if you look at the old drawer you can see where on the bottom of the old drawer where people are obviously puts stuff in and taken stuffs out over the course of the years. That the tin of each one of the sides and the base and the drawer front is similar very, very similar so it doesn’t appear to me that there has been any restoration to the inside of this drawer except for the slide that I pointed out. And the drawer bottom itself is rough and shows a great signs of where. So that’s one of the things that you can play on your own detective about when you are trying to determine whether a pieces there old, remember check out the where on the case piece of self, check out the where on the drawer, see if the tin is look the same and if they do your better educated than you were when you came into the original. On behalf of YuQing and myself thank you so much, hope you enjoy this video and see you tomorrow. YuQing Zhao: Thank you.