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Lot Essay
The ornate and sophisticated carved elements of the present table suggest the technical abilities and spirited creativity of the Ming-dynasty carpenter when uninhibited by the restraints of standard furniture design. The present table is designed as a fixed-leg ‘demountable’ table. The table is based on a form which has detachable legs, thus allowing it to be used as both a kang table and a standard-height table. In the present table, the legs are fixed and are carved to imitate its detachable counterparts. The legs extend to ‘vase-form’ feet, an elegant and rare alternative to the standard round foot. What is most impressive is the elaborate, detailed carving on the waist, cusped aprons, and braces. The waist is carved with an undulating band, resembling the edges of a rippling lotus leaf. This wave-like band is set above the beaded, cusped apron, finely carved in high relief with phoenixes in flight facing the sun and on the narrow sides with birds alighting on flowering branches. All set above intricate and spirited dragon-form spandrels, beautifully carved and highlighting the precise hair markings of the mane and observant eye of a dragon in flight. The esteemed Chinese furniture scholar Wang Shixiang observed the resemblance of these design motifs to Wanli-period porcelain and textiles.
There are two known examples of a table with this very rare combination of three carved designs and with fixed legs terminating in ‘vase-form’ feet is in the Wang Shixiang collection, now at the Shanghai Museum, and is illustrated by Wang Shixiang in Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture, vol. II, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 80, pl. B43 and a second example sold in Monochrome II; Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 9 October 2020, lot 99. The three tables are comparable in size, suggesting they could have been made to be of a larger commissioned set and originated from the same workshop. There are other tables that feature a combination of this almost unique design, such as a huanghuali square table sold at Christie’s London, 8 November 2016, lot 195.
There are two known examples of a table with this very rare combination of three carved designs and with fixed legs terminating in ‘vase-form’ feet is in the Wang Shixiang collection, now at the Shanghai Museum, and is illustrated by Wang Shixiang in Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture, vol. II, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 80, pl. B43 and a second example sold in Monochrome II; Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 9 October 2020, lot 99. The three tables are comparable in size, suggesting they could have been made to be of a larger commissioned set and originated from the same workshop. There are other tables that feature a combination of this almost unique design, such as a huanghuali square table sold at Christie’s London, 8 November 2016, lot 195.