In this short video you get to see how a beautiful Qing dynasty Chinese canopy bed is assembled without the use of glue or nails while the Chinese Museum's Curator, Dr Sophie Couchman explains how the bed is both a Chinese and an Australian bed.

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TRANSCRIPT

So the Chinese Museum is incredibly excited to have this new addition to our collection and indeed to our displays. This beautiful Qing Dynasty bed.

It’s been quite a while in coming, there’s been a lot of planning involved in order to get the bed in place and find a place for it in the museum.

Yesterday we spent the day pulling the bed apart in the donor’s bedroom and wrapping each of the, over 50 pieces, individually wrapped and labelled and delivered to the museum. And then we spent today pulling it all together again. So it’s like an enormous 3D jigsaw puzzle.

One of the beautifully elegant things about Chinese woodwork and craftsmanship – there are no nails in this bed at all, there’s just a very minimal use of glue and so everything slots in with interlocking joints.

There’s a few things I love about the bed. The first thing that I love is – I think it’s a beautiful bed. I love the balance between the very simple lines and simple decorations like these. Versus the incredible detail that you have here – where there are little stories being performed in the decoration.

The symbols that we have identified are all about longevity, marital happiness, they’re about good fortune. They’re the sorts of things that you would imagine associated with a bed such as this.

So what do we know about the history of this bed? It came to Australia, we believe, probably sometime in the 19th century – maybe the early 20th century, but probably the 19th century. And we believe it was brought to Tasmania by a sea captain and this sea captain had been working, trading between Tasmania and Canton. He was transporting sand, something to do with making porcelain.  When he decided to retire he was given this beautiful bed. And brought it back with him to Tasmania, where he had it set up in his house.

He eventually died, the house and all the contents of the house were bought by a man who also lived in Tasmania called Colin Self and he also, we believe, slept in the bed. The bed ended up actually in the cow shed of the property. I assume in lots of little bits, and that was where an art dealer from Melbourne discovered the bed and purchased the bed. And brought it back to Melbourne, sold it to the family that have donated it to us – Jill and Frank Jones. They set it up in their beautiful house, in their bedroom and they slept in it for over 40 years.

One of the things that’s very beautiful about this bed is that even though it’s very Chinese, its actually had a very intimate space in a number of Australian’s lives.

字幕

这张精美的清代木床，现已被澳华博物馆收藏并面向公众展出，对我们来讲确是一件令人兴奋的事情。

让它在博物馆安家花了我们很长时间，很多时间用在规划如何运输及何处安放。

昨天，我们在捐赠者家中把木床拆开，大概拆成了50多个部分，又把每个部分都包装好、贴上标签，之后运到了博物馆。今天我们主要是把它再重新组装起来。感觉像是一个大型的3D立体拼图。

中国木工制品及木工技术的一个美妙之处就是，在这张木床上你找不到一颗钉子，只是用了少量的胶水，整张床都是通过榫卯结构连接起来的。

关于这张床，有几点我非常喜欢。一是，这床非常的精美。我喜欢（简单和丰富之间）保持的这种平衡，比如这里—这种简单线条和简朴装饰，与这里—（这个线条和图案）非常丰富。

我们看到有象征意义的，都是关于长寿、婚姻幸福美满的，都是有关吉利好运，

这些你能联想到的跟床有关的祝福。

那么，这张木床有什么历史呢？据信，这张床大约在19世纪—也许20世纪早期，但很可能是19世纪—被运抵澳大利亚。我们认为它是被一个船长带到塔斯马尼亚的，这个船长当时从事的是塔斯马尼亚与广东之间的贸易。他运输沙土、那些与瓷器制作有关的东西。在他准备退休的时候，别人送了他这张精美的木床，这张床就跟着他回到了塔斯马尼亚，在家中，组装起了这张床。

他去世后，房子和里面所有的东西都被一个也居住在塔斯马尼亚的名叫Colin Self男士购买，我们认为Colin Self也曾使用过这张床。这张床最后被放置在院子的牛棚里，我想象着应该是七零八碎地放置着，后来被来自墨尔本的一个艺术品经纪人发现、购买并带回墨尔本，最后卖给了现在捐赠给博物馆的这户人家—Jones夫妇（Jill和Frank）。他们把床放在了在卧室，使用了40多年。

关于这张床，非常美妙的一点是，尽管它非常的中国，却与一些澳洲人的生活紧密相连。