A LARGE HUANGHUALI AND NANMU RECESSED-LEG TABLE, TIAO'AN

17TH CENTURY

Details

A LARGE HUANGHUALI AND NANMU RECESSED-LEG TABLE, TIAO'AN
17th Century
The top frame with "ice-plate" edge enclosing an unusually large single panel of nanmu burl, supported on slightly splayed "melon"-section legs with concave beading joined by double stretchers on the two short sides, the apron with concave beading continuing to the spandrels, each finely carved as a stylized phoenix with crest, scrolling tail, wings and sharply hooked beak overlapping the apron
32 5/8in. (82.8cm.) high, 71¾in. (182.2cm.) wide, 22¾in. (57.3cm.) deep

Literature

Curtis Evarts, ''Classical Chinese Furniture in the Piccus Collection'', JCCFS, Autumn 1992, p. 20-21, figs. 20-20a

Further details

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Lot Essay

A huanghuali table with comparable archaistic phoenix spandrels was included in the exhibition, The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture, and illustrated by Grace Wu Bruce in the Catalogue, p. 70, no. 23. A jichimu example, illustrated by Wang et al., Masterpieces from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, p. 112, no. 53, was sold in these rooms September 19, 1996, lot 59. A huanghuali example from the collection of the Beijing Timber Factory is illustrated by Wang Shixiang in Classic Chinese Furniture, p. 171, no. 112

For a discussion of this type, see Sarah Handler, ''Side Tables, a Surface for Treasures and the Gods", Orientations, May 1996, pp. 32-41, where she suggests that they were used primarily as side tables, sometimes as domestic altar tables