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Lot Essay
Made of precious zitan wood, these elegant tables have a fine brown patina. Each with a top of standard mitre, mortise and tenon frame and flush, tongue-and grooved, three floating-panel construction supported by five dovetailed transverse stretchers. Beneath the table top are two wrap-around stretcher joined by short braces are panels carved with beaded fielded oblong designs. A ruyi-shaped spandrel is placed between the lower stretcher and the leg to lighten up the overall design and act as an additional securing device for the legs. Extant examples of pairs of zitan painting table are exceedingly rare, with only this example to-date.
Guotui or ‘wrap around the legs’ method of making furniture was inspired by their bamboo counterparts which were often depicted in Song and Ming paintings. Constructed in a standard form of waistless table, these tables with their rounded surfaces and round legs, were designed to imitate a bamboo table. This method not only has a decorative effect, but also enhances stability. This type of painting tables is mostly made of huanghuali, rarely made of zitan, and often in the Qing style. The hollowness and uprightness have always been admired by the literati. The use of precious hardwood to simulate common materials illustrates the preference for understatement considered high-form by the scholar. Compare with a Qing huanghuali side table of similar form, which was sold at Christie's New York, 22 March 2019, lot 1670. A similar bamboo style zitan table, is illustrated by Peter Lai, Peter Lai Antiques, Hong Kong, 1988, p.26, no. 28; and another example was illustrated in Gustac Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture, Vermont and Tokyo, 1962, p.58, no. 44.
Guotui or ‘wrap around the legs’ method of making furniture was inspired by their bamboo counterparts which were often depicted in Song and Ming paintings. Constructed in a standard form of waistless table, these tables with their rounded surfaces and round legs, were designed to imitate a bamboo table. This method not only has a decorative effect, but also enhances stability. This type of painting tables is mostly made of huanghuali, rarely made of zitan, and often in the Qing style. The hollowness and uprightness have always been admired by the literati. The use of precious hardwood to simulate common materials illustrates the preference for understatement considered high-form by the scholar. Compare with a Qing huanghuali side table of similar form, which was sold at Christie's New York, 22 March 2019, lot 1670. A similar bamboo style zitan table, is illustrated by Peter Lai, Peter Lai Antiques, Hong Kong, 1988, p.26, no. 28; and another example was illustrated in Gustac Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture, Vermont and Tokyo, 1962, p.58, no. 44.