What Is an Oriental Tansu Cabinet?
Tansu cabinets hail from ancient Japan. Designed for portability, these multiple drawer units held everything from medicine to a bride's trousseau. Intricate metal hardware adorns each piece and secret drawers were built into some of these fine wood cabinets. Reproduction chests can be found today in many price ranges along with the originals, dating as far back as the late 1600s. Does this Spark an idea?
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Tansu Defined
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Tansu cabinets are free-standing, mobile storage chests with multiple drawers and compartments. They are characterized by these multiple drawers, fine wood construction and elaborate brass and iron hardware. The configuration and composition reveals its story; its use, where it was built and the status and wealth of its owner. Traditional tansu cabinets include merchants' chests, sea chests, tea ceremony chests, sword chests, incense preparation chests, medicine chests, bridal chests and accounting chests. Large tansu were used to hold kimonos.
History
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Tansu cabinets and chests are unique to Japan, though other Asian countries have adapted and copied the traditional style. Originally a folk-art tradition, the design combines the skills of a woodworker, lacquer artist and an ironsmith. The earliest historical reference for the word "tansu" was set down during the Edo period, 1688 to 1703, and remained popular through the Meiji era, which ended in 1912.
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Configurations
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Tansu cabinets must be mobile, therefore not all small-drawer cabinetry can be considered, unless they can stand on their own and be easily relocated. Staircase chests are commonly seen in an array of sizes. Some are large enough to climb to another floor, but can be dismantled. Step-shaped sections are not utilized as freestanding units, but the rectangular central cabinet is and can be called a tansu.Secret and locked drawers are not uncommon.
Motifs and Hardware
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Tansu cabinets have functional and decorative metal fittings; drawer pulls, lock plates and appliques. Animal and nature motifs of iron or brass were applied to the exterior to signify admirable qualities, such as fidelity, integrity or perseverance. For example, cranes symbolize longevity and beauty, while resiliency is depicted as the ever bending bamboo. Tortoises, butterflies, flowering plum, ivy, peony, rabbits and tigers are other traditional Japanese images commonly used.
Collecting Antique Tansu Cabinets
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Becoming familiar with the history of Japanese furniture from the Edo period forward is the first step in being able to distinguish an antique from a reproduction. It is the selection of woods, methods of joinery and quality of the metal details that indicate its approximate date, origin and intrinsic value. In central and southern Japan, metal fittings were austere and simple, while on the coasts and in the north they were elaborate and decorated with animal and nature motifs which spread across the entire exterior of the piece.
Reproductions can be found at fine furniture stores, antiques and collectible shops and online.
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