The development of Chinese antique furniture peaked during the Ming dynasty, as Ming furniture features simple, smooth, and flowing lines, and plain and elegant ornamentation.

In the early 1990's, a friend, Nicholas Grindley, a London dealer, introduced Ms. Selldorf to Ming furniture and art, and she was rapt.

The roomful of rosewood Ming furniture, spare and sensual at the same time, draws me back again and again.

"There are a lot of industrialists, a lot of money floating around," said Dr. S. Y. Yip, a well-known Hong Kong collector of Ming furniture.

Although well proportioned and simple in form, Ming furniture does not look like furniture from the West; chairs have yoke or horseshoe backs, stools fold in the center, alcove beds have wood canopies.

The appeal of Ming furniture lies in the richness of the wood, the simplicity of the design and the intricate construction.

It was the rare person who was interested in Ming furniture.

Self-taught, he has been a dealer for more than 50 years and has donated Ming furniture and 471 modern Chinese paintings and examples of calligraphy to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

There are 130 richly embellished furnishings in court settings and a smaller display of 15 exquisite pieces of miniature Ming furniture.

Choice among the Ming furniture he is showing is a pair of 16th-century aristocratic-looking chairs with yoke backs, for which he is asking $200,000 for the set.