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Feb 21, 2012
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by: Margarida Dias

Dear Peter, i have said that the photos before taken where with flash and a bad camera. Now i have taken with no flash (with day light) and a better camera. All the panells are like rosewood. You said they are few decorative pannels, there are 7. but all have somehting imitating windows that can be taken, what i refer to decorative are the invisible Paitings that are on the darker wood (down part of pannels) in shape of a rectangle (only with certain lights you can see it). As for the weight again, i have a sofa all in iron that weights about 1000 kg or more and nothing compared to the bed, you can´t make the bed move a bit up. Ther´s still 3 more pannels attached on the part of up of the bed (horizontal ones). This bed is in Family for about 200 years (makes it 1811) so its way earlier. This bed was almost all the time in Macau. I have seen the Chinese Imperial Market, but i only see bad things (not the good ones). i have seen some drawings from Giuseppe castiglione and some imperial seals but still not the important ones. I have a painting in porcelain with ming seals on it, but it has been restored due to his deterioration and now appears more new, as new porcelain has been added. Im sorry for the long comments but i wanted to clarify that photos are not enough for authenticy. If weight can say its exotic and not the color, is that this bed had an camphor dais, it had to be replaced by pine due to extreme deterioration. Thank you again for your help.
Feb 20, 2012
 color of the wood
by: peter

The color is irrelevant. Most furniture of this type has been colored. An exception are usually heavy tropical hard woods.
Yes, if it is heavy it could be Rosewood, but not the panels you uploaded earlier. They definitely do not look like tropical wood. You should be aware that the same bed may have different woods. I also see that there are few decorative panels. There would be lots of them on a bed, usually. They may have been removed.

Anyway, officially China recognizes several types of wood as "rosewood". It would need a specialist in Chinese wood types on location, to make sure what is what. There is no point in uploading more pictures... the identification of some Chinese hard woods is almost impossible this way. My knowledge is limited to the woods I handled myself and a few others.

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