SALEM, MASS. -- A new exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum transports visitors back a hundred years and more to provinical Chinese homes. "Friends of the House: Furniture from China's Towns and Villages" is the first museum exhibition to explore the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century furnishings created by China's common people.

Continuing in the museum's Dodge Wing until August 7, the exhibit features typical household furnishings arranged in settings evoking common architecture of northern and southern regions of China.

"In a small village in northern Jiangxi province," Nancy Berliner writes in Friends of The House: Furniture From China's Towns and Villages, "where winters are cool but not frigid, I once spotted two unusual round Chinese stools about a knee high. Each had wooden boards around half of the exterior, and an opening. I peered into the dark innards. On a shelf lay spent ashes and remnants of burning coal. Sensing my curiosity, an elderly man corroborated my suspicions. These sitting devices, he said, were used in the cold months for keeping warm. The well-worn seats were evidence that the stools had provided warmth for family members and their guests through many winters."

Such personal recollections are just half of the appeal of Friends of the House, the catalogue and exhibit organized by Nancy Berliner, guest curator. The other half is the opportunity to learn more about Chinese furniture, which is appreciated by a growing circle of collectors for its simple lines and abstract form.

Berliner, an independent scholar of Chinese art and culture who is completing doctoral work at Harvard, spent much of the 1980s living and traveling in Asia. After stints in Taiwan and Hong Kong, she moved to Beijing in 1982, where she attended the Central Academy of Art. Fluent in Chinese, she roamed the countryside, refining her understanding of vernacular furniture and its relationship to the classical, high-style pieces made for China's elite.

After returning to this country, Berliner organized "Chinese Folk Art: The Small Skills of Carving Insects," a traveling exhibit that opened at the Yale University Art Gallery in 1987. Little Brown & Company published her book of the same name.

For the past six years, the Somerville, Mass., resident has been at work on "Friends of The House" and a concurrent display of Ming Dynasty furniture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. On view through May 18, 1997, "Beyond The Screen: Chinese Furniture of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" presents 130 objects ranging from screens, chairs and beds to a chess board, scholars' rocks, woodworking tools, and a set of miniature furniture excavated from a Sixteenth Century tomb, on loan from the Shanghai Museum of Art.

With an eye toward conveying the look and feel of a Ming home, the MFA presents furniture in room settings: reception hall, study, bedroom and courtyard. Designed by the architectural firm of Jung/Brannen Associates, Inc, the installation took over five months to complete. The more than 40 objects in "Friends of The House" are arrayed in room settings typical of different regions of China.

"Working on the two exhibits allowed me to look at the whole range of Chinese furniture, which is important," Berliner notes. "One of the things that is very interesting in that the vernacular is often based on classical forms, but artisans went off on tangents and did exciting things. At the same time, you see vernacular influence on classical objects. For instance, we have a pair of drum stools, a classical shape, made of rootwood in the MFA show. Rootwood is available and cheap, but the literati, Taoists and Buddhists saw something very natural, organic and modest about it, and adapted it to their use."

Berliner credits increased interest in Chinese furniture to both scholarship and salesmanship. "Wang Shixiang had been studying furniture since the 1950s. Because of the Cultural Revolution, it wasn't until the late 1980s that he was able to put together a fantastic book on Chinese furniture. His book coincided with the opening of China. A lot of furniture came out that had not been available since before the Revolution."

A one-day study program in which Berliner will participate is planned for September 15 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Additionally, Sotheby's has organized an in-depth symposium on Chinese furniture for September 12-14. Robert Ellsworth, a New York dealer who published one of the first books on subject, will speak, along with Christopher Cooke; Sarah Handler, co-author of Friends of The House Regina Krahl, Kwang Ming-Ang, Ronald Longsdorf, Lark E. Mason, Jan Stuart and Tian Jia Qing.

The museum is at East India Square. For information, 508/744-6776.