For centuries, just about all the well-crafted furniture end up in the hands of aristocrats, landed families, army generals and royalties in imperial China. This has been clearly shown as late as the Ming Dynasty furniture specimen that have survived. But by the end of the succeeding Qing dynasty right before the communist takeover in the early part of 20th century, fine furniture crafting has grown exponentially, thanks to the growth of the middle class in imperial China allowing more people to own better crafted furniture.
The Qing dynasty was the last imperial dynasty to rule China from 1644 to 1912. It was during this time that China was opened to western commerce in what historians tag as the "opening of a sleeping giant." The result of the "opening" ushered in a wave of western ideas that found its way not only in politics and economy, but in its the culture and arts.
• A new bourgeoisie or middle class emerged in just two generations of the dynastic rule and have benefited from the wider distribution of wealth resulting from increased trade with the outside world.
• The new middle class were the families of traders and entrepreneurs who amassed wealth from increased trade with western businesses and created a heightened demand not just for more furniture, but better crafted ones.
• With western influence, the new breed of China furniture craftsmen incorporated western styling which heralded a new age in furniture designs where the constraints towards functionality and design simplicity gave way to unrestrained penchant to ornamentation and embellishments in furniture crafting for their own sake.
Wood Depletion
It was also during the last years of the Ming Dynasty that the traditional woods used to construct China furniture over the centuries started to run out. This depletion went its course until the middle of Qing Dynasty as the supply of mahogany and pear wood eventually fizzled.
Needless to say, for furniture makers facing this depletion, a replacement wood had to be found which they did. The main wood used during the Qing Dynasty was red sandalwood. Less hard and durable, the sandalwood was nevertheless considered to be more beautiful due to its bright and deep red hue in the grain with distinct striped grain patterns. Red sandalwood also did not lend itself easily to massive furniture surfaces characteristic of those in the Ming dynasty as the wood tree has a much finer or smaller diameter. Hence, many of the Qing dynastic furniture are smaller using thinner spines and structure.
