Abstract

During the eighteenth century, cabinetmakers in Canton (Guangzhou) produced a large quantity of hardwood furniture for European consumers. This essay examines the knowledge culture of these cabinetmakers, focusing on epistemic negotiations and adaptations in the process of making export furniture. While export furniture was made in European styles, cabinetmakers did not parrot European techniques of carpentry but creatively mobilized their own craft knowledge. Juxtaposing material evidence from extant pieces and the carpentry manual The Classic of Lu Ban, the essay argues that the knowledge of joinery formed the basis of a practice of artisanal translation that was material and syntactic. Offering modular rubrics for spatial handling, joinery allowed cabinetmakers to restructure and reinvent furniture with a European appearance. Tracing the interaction between an indigenous knowledge system and global trade commodities, the essay underlines the social and epistemic realignments of locally rooted craft in the achievement of innovation.