Bed Side Chest with Double Joy Ornaments

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The beauty of Korean traditional wooden furniture lies in the grain of the wood from which it is made. For Korean Master Carpenter specialized in making this type of furnishings, no artificial beauty can exceed the loveliness of what is natural. They prefer highlighting the material’s natural patterns and forms, rather than adding artificial ornaments or colors. They shun metal nails because these ‘alien’ objects can damage the wood's beauty borne from the landscape, and instead, fit the parts of the work together by making grooves and holes. The result of such meticulous methods is a fine piece of furniture, in which the dynamic, elegant lines and forms of nature are kept intact. Korean traditional furniture possesses its creator’s revered love of nature, interwoven with its exquisitely refined grace.

This fine bedside chest is made of five different types of wood fitted together using traditional techniques to create a solid structure with a fine design: Paulownia for the sides, Tree-of-Heaven for the top, Zelkova for the rest of the chest, and Black Persimmon and Ginko for the edges between rectangular figures at the front. The Paulownia sides are 'ironed' to make the natural grain more beautiful, a unique technique of Korean traditional furnishing.

The arrangement of colors and geographic patterns made of five different types of wood creates wonderful harmony with the metal butterfly ornaments, exemplifying the essence of traditional Korean furniture's beauty.