Good wood on antiques

One place to appreciate the real, rare red sandalwood furniture of the Ming and Qing dynasties is to visit the China Red Sandalwood Museum.

Almost 20,000 visitors took advantage of free entry to the museum on May 18, International Museum Day, where they enjoyed the genuine antique furniture and reproductions.

Squatting in front of a Ming-Dynasty cabinet, Gao Jianhua, a furniture enthusiast from Shandong Province, used a magnifying glass to study the detailed patterns carved on the furniture. “Ming furniture features flat backs decorated with straight or curved wooden patterns and is sometimes embedded with marbles,” Gao said.