Tansu -- The Far East Finds A Niche In The West

OUR FRIEND GWEN Ewan had come to visit from Victoria, B.C., and casually mentioned a need for a small chest of drawers. On an excursion to Tacoma, we stopped at Twice Told Tales Antique Mall in University Place and Gwen found magic in a varnished wood staircase of small and large drawers and cabinets with sliding doors, embellished with wrought-iron hardware. She had never seen a "tansu" before, and was instantly taken into its spell.

Traditional Japanese homes had little furniture. Movable partitions and screens made the small interiors adaptable to many uses, and furniture was small and portable, consisting of several storage chests, called tansu. Tansu in their many guises developed during the Edo period (1615-1868), reflecting the rise of a prosperous merchant class. The 19th and early 20th centuries are sometimes referred to as "the golden age of tansu" because of quantity and range of types built during that time. Many have found their way to America through the import/export trade.

Jeffery Cline of Kagedo Japanese Art and Antiques has clients who find tansu easily adapted to contemporary storage. And he practices what he preaches in his own home, "My stereo equipment is in one, and all my clothing is in another."

Tansu come in all shapes and sizes, from the smallest hibachi (brazier), haribako (sewing kit) or tabako-bon (tobacco box) to large isho-dansu (clothing closet), naga-mochi (linen closet), mizuya-dansu (kitchen chest) and chodansu (merchant's shop chest).

But it was the remarkable kaidan-dansu (free-standing staircase with built in compartments) that had captured the imagination of our friend Gwen. Its beauty traditionally was in its simplicity of design to serve more than one function. The drawers frequently extended completely through the stairs, with drawer pulls on either side - a great feature if you've ever tried to reach a pair of socks stashed in the back of the traditional dresser drawer! The stairs allowed access to high storage areas or lofts in the same way as portable stairs allow librarians to reach to topmost book shelves in a library. Nowadays, the steps are display places for treasured lacquerware and celadon porcelain.

With its narrow treads, the antique step tansu is not meant to support Husky football players with standard American feet. Gwen's find was a Korean reproduction at a much smaller scale than the original stairs - and a much lower price - $950 after some back and forth haggling.

Most furniture shoppers would have little reason to come across tansu. They are not a part of the Western European and contemporary home furnishings markets, and I had little knowledge of them. So on Gwen's next visit here, I arranged for a tansu shopping expedition, learning that in Seattle and the Eastside there were a small number of shops that show off the tansu, both antique and reproductions, at prices ranging from $400 to nearly $30,000. I saw furniture made from a number of woods, sugi (cryptomeria), matsu (Japanese pine), kuri (chestnut), kiri (paulownia), and keyakai (zelkova). Some chests were quite simple, others had burled veneers, footed bases and handsome folding screens for house shrines and secret compartments.

What seemed particularly smart - and designed into them for portability - was that most chests came in two or three parts. Those made for merchants whose travels took them overland and by boat had built-in metal carrying handles or wheels. Bamboo poles could be slipped through the handles for portability by carriers or, at the least, hoisted on one's back. Tansu were a practical solution to protect gold, valuables and ledger books in a country where fires and earthquakes were commonplace.

Kagedo owner Jeffery Cline describes the keyakai wood (zelkova) merchant chests from the port city of Sendai as having the most elaborate metalwork, embellished with tortoises, shi shi and leaping tigers. Sendai was a rich merchant area and the ornate chests were a sign of wealth and status. They were displayed in the main tatami or presentation rooms, and not relegated to sleeping areas, kitchens and shops. With current prices in the range of $20,000, they continue to be prized possessions.

Dealers remember a period in the 1960s and 1970s when the Japanese routinely threw out old chests as they Westernized their lifestyle. Back then, tansu could be bought at auction for very little. However, the Japanese revival of interest in folk art and craft has stimulated new appreciation for the simple decoration and elegant proportions of the tansu in much the same way as appreciation for the American Arts and Crafts movement has stimulated re-interest in - and high sale prices for - Mission oak furniture and traditionally modest bungalow real estate.

Prices vary greatly, as they would for any antique, based upon age, condition, quality and materials. But size is not a determining factor, according to Galen Lowe of Honeychurch Antiques Ltd. "Smaller pieces are sometimes more expensive because they are suitable to contemporary Japanese lifestyles and smaller apartments, whereas large kitchen and storage units do not fit" and therefore may have less value to the Japanese. And while Gene Zema of Japanese Antiquities Gallery notes that the Japanese prize hardwood over soft, he points out, "Hardwood is a negative factor here. There, it (the tansu) is in unheated homes in the open air, exposed to a lot of moisture, rain. The wood breathes. When you bring it to a heated house, the hardwood faces warp, shrink and crack."

While some local dealers bring over furniture that needs to be reconditioned and refinished, there are those like Zema who don't believe in doctoring them because part of the beauty of a piece of furniture is the patina of the original finish. "I clean and oil and make minor adjustments, but I don't re-stain, strip or replace hardware. It's a piece of art work. If it's been mangled, it's not art work anymore."

THE TANSU TRADE

Seattle architect Gene Zema has been buying and selling tansu chests since the late 1960s. Only dealers can attend an auction in Japan, Zema says. "My agent goes to 20 to 25 auctions a month all over Japan, and brings things back to warehouses in Kyoto." Zema's gallery, below, on Eastlake Avenue East is an appropriately Japanese-designed setting of wood posts and rafters for the display of Japanese tansu, screens and objects from many locales.

THE ASIAN SPIRIT

Ron Reeder's interest in things Japanese is not surprising. His parents were missionaries in Japan, and he returned there for a year of studies at the University of Kyoto. When he and his wife, Judy Roan, built a new home on Mercer Island, they did it in quasi-Japanese style. Reeder talked architect Gene Zema out of retirement to help design the house, now a backdrop for a variety of tansu. An "unpedigreed" tansu, above, purchased 15 years ago for $1,200 sets the tone of their tokonoma room platform. The rough-cut walnut post is from western Maryland. Screens from Marvel on Madison determined the height of windows in the new house.

The couple use a large mizuya, left, they bought four years ago for $4,000 in their dining room as a sideboard to store dishes and silverware.

STEPPING UP

Marion Gartler has at least a dozen tansu throughout her house. She has purchased them in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Japan for more than 20 years. But the piece de resistance of her collection is a remarkable two-sided kaidan-dansu, above, that leads to a second-floor room where she serves tea, writes and accommodates guests. She bought the piece at auction through a Kyoto dealer in 1976, based only on sketches sent to her. The piece was high priority for Gartler. A two-story addition designed that year by Gene Zema had been completed, and Gartler remembers, "We had built the whole room (upstairs) and didn't have a stairway for four months because I was waiting to find one. When we found this one, it wasn't the right dimensions, but it came so close to meeting my needs and we were so glad to get it. We had to build a platform with rollers in order to reach the drawers and cabinets on the other side."

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

This couple have about a dozen tansu in the living, dining, library and bedrooms of their Montlake home, ranging from sword chests to shop tansu to medicine chests. They hold stereo equipment, liquor, clothing and linens. They have also bought screens, textiles, ceramics and ironware that complement the tansu and seem to fit effortlessly within the formally laid out English-style residence.

For example, next to the classically detailed fireplace, the small corner tansu, below, is one of a half-dozen that fill the living room. The coffee-table top is a kura (storehouse) door found in Japan through Gene Zema's agent in Kyoto. The owner speaks affectionately about one of his favorite tansu, a 19th-century shop chest, right, he acquired years back for about $2,500. A feature that attracts him is the post-and-beam-like joinery and the substantial and rough-hewn nature of the piece. A mid-19th-century Japanese plate and ironware saki pots rest on the tansu. The lithograph is by Jacob Lawrence.

Sliding doors reveal additional drawers with wrought-iron handles in this cherrywood stained hinoki tansu with keyakai burl veneers, purchased for about $4,500. Antique carvings of birds, trees and flowers, purchased from Kagedo, were architectural elements originally located above door frames. The blue and white imari bowl is 19th century.

A STEP IN TIME

Kaidan-dansu - staircase chests - are the subject of an exhibit at Ming's Asian Gallery on Main Street in Old Bellevue through Dec. 25. Included are more than 60 pieces spanning the late Edo period, the Meiji and the Tasiho era, as well as contemporary pieces.

Lawrence Kreisman is author of six publications on regional architecture and historic preservation. Barry Wong is a Seattle Times photographer.

--------------- THE TANSU TRAIL ---------------

Below are some local dealers who show and sell various antique and modern Japanese and Korean tansu, along with a variety of other Asian furnishings and accessories. In addition, you may discover tansu some unexpected furniture showrooms, such as Del-Teet in Bellevue.

ASIA GALLERY 1225 First Ave. Seattle, WA 98101 622-0516

Asian Style 409 First Ave. S. Seattle, WA 98104 628-3099

The Crane Gallery Inc. 1203-B Second Ave. Seattle, WA 98101 622-7185

Honeychurch Antiques Ltd. 1008 James St. Seattle, WA 98104 622-1225

Japanese Antiquities Gallery 200 E. Boston St. Seattle, WA 98102 324-3322

Kagedo Japanese Art and Antiques 520 First Ave. S. Seattle, WA 98104 467-9077

Marvel on Madison Asian Antiquities 69 Madison St. Seattle, WA 98104 624-4225

Ming's Asian Gallery 10217 Main St. Bellevue, WA 98004 462-4008

Yangtze River Trading Company 1124 First Ave. Seattle, WA 98101 622-4662