The present cabinet is striking for its impressive size and elegant form. Known as dingxianggui, cabinets of such grand size and surmounted with ‘hat chests’ were designed to convey monumentality and strength. They were commonly displayed both in the reception rooms of a stately home, and in the women’s apartments, where they were used to store garments. Their scale altered any sense of proportion rendering other forms quite diminutive. In the novel Hong lou meng [Dream of the red chamber] by Cao Xueqin (d. 1763), Granny Liu describes her astonishment at seeing such wardrobes at the Jia family’s mansion: “That great wardrobe of yours is higher and wider than one of our rooms back home. I’m not surprised you keep a ladder in the backyard… it must be for getting things out of the compartment on top of that wardrobe of yours, for you could never reach it else” (in Sarah Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Berkley, 2001, p. 262). Compare a closely related pair of massive huanghuali-veneered compound cabinets, 18th-19th century, which was sold at Christie’s New York, 19 September 2🍷014, lot 1116.

頂箱櫃亦通常成對擺放，亦稱四件櫃，為倉儲家具類中最大體量家具，亦是明代家具中最耗費名貴材料及工匠時間的重量級家具。櫃子一般成雙而造，頂箱尺寸比立櫃稍微小，以平穩安放於上層。頂箱櫃的比例設計在設計中尤為重要，頂箱的高度大概為立櫃的三分之一，需要使用梯子開啟，因此適宜存放過季或不常使用的物品。《紅樓夢》中，村嫗劉姥姥入大觀園，生平頭一回見到賈府家具，只道：「人人都說大家子住大房，昨兒見了老太太正房，配上大箱、大櫃、大桌子、大床，果然威武。那櫃子比我們一間房子還大還高。」見Sarah Handler，《Austere𒐪 Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture》，伯克利，2001年，🌳頁262。參看紐約佳士得曾售出一對十八至十九世紀貼黃花梨四件櫃，2014年9月19日拍品編號1116。