Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, King of Ming Furniture Collection

On March 7, 2015, the bidding at Christies in New York's Rockefeller Center on a pair of scented wood round-backed armchairs produced in the late Ming and early Qing dynasty started at US $2.2 million. The final transaction price was US $2.629 million, eight times the lowest estimated price, setting a new world auction record for scented wood furniture.

The contours and texture of the scented wood round-backed armchair fully display its elegance and exude a profound cultural aura. It was once collected by Robert Hatfield Ellsworth (1929-2013), a heavyweight collector of Asian art articles, known as the "King of Ming Furniture Collection," for his treasure trove of Ming-style furniture.

Ellsworth devoted himself to the study and collection of Ming-style furniture for decades and produced prolific works on its study. In 1970, he made a great coup with the book Chinese Furniture (Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ch'ing Dynasty). In 1982, Ellsworth held a Chinese furniture exhibition at Honolulu Art Museum, and compiled a catalogue of exhibited Chinese hardwood furniture articles. In 1996, he privately published Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection. In 1998, he published Essence of Style: Chinese Furniture of the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasty. Ellsworth published his last work, Volume Two of Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, in 2005. Christie's recent whopping auction price not only demonstrated Ellsworth's important status as a connoisseur and collector of Chinese furniture, but also testified to his achievements in the study of Chinese furniture.

Undoubtedly, Ellsworth was endowed with a unique appreciation of Ming-style furniture. He not only generously shared his findings and knowledge, but also reminded others to sharpen their focus without being perplexed and disoriented by fleeting trends.

Ellsworth believed that people can disregard cliches on aesthetics and appreciate the real beauty of an object only if they trust their judgment instead of blindly following doctrines set by experts. He held that those who learn to observe by themselves automatically find paths into a new world and discover beauty and virtue different from traditional culture. Ellsworth's study, zeal, unique insight, and generous contribution constituted a foundation for the Chinese furniture connoisseur and collection circle to develop further.