A Pair of Fujian Woven Rattan Travelling Trunks

This handsome pair of woven travelling trunks exemplifies the refined basketry traditions of Fujian province in southeastern China, a coastal region long renowned for its intricate rattan and bamboo craftsmanship. Constructed with a robust wooden framework and tightly woven rattan panels, the trunks display an arresting geometric pattern formed through alternating dark and honey-toned fibres.

Such trunks were commonly produced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the trading ports of Fujian, where basketry workshops supplied durable luggage for merchants, sailors and travellers moving through the busy maritime routes of the South China Sea. Today they possess an appealing duality: once functional objects of travel, they now read as highly decorative pieces, their rich patina and graphic pattern lending them sculptural presence within an interior.