A RARE QIANGJIN AND TIANQI POLYCHROME LACQUERED BRACKET-LOBED TABLE
A RARE QIANGJIN AND TIANQI POLYCHROME LACQUERED BRACKET-LOBED TABLE

Details
A RARE QIANGJIN AND TIANQI POLYCHROME LACQUERED BRACKET-LOBED TABLE
QING DYNASTY, 18TH CENTURY

The table top with bracket-lobed sides, incised and picked out in tones of red and green on the upper surface with a pair of birds perched on a flowering pomegranate tree, growing beside two upright floral sprays and a rocky boulder, all on an orange-red diaper-ground, surrounded by a key-fret border, the eight lobed sides slightly recessed and variously designed with cartouches of incised phoenix and dragon in polychrome colours and highlighted in gilt, raised on the underside by a central column, formed by a trumpet-shaped upper section incised with butterflies between raised flanges, the central knop dividing the pear-shaped lower support that is attached to the splayed stepped base, variously designed with bands of lotus scrolls, bats, and kui dragons (minor restoration)
22 x 31 1/2 in. (55.9 x 80 cm.)

Lot Essay

It is unusual to find tables of this form supported by a central column; the most comparable example is depicted on a hanging scroll entitled, 'One or Two?', from the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Wu Hung, The Double Screen: Medium and Representation in Chinese Painting, London, 1996, p. 234, fig. 167. The hanging scroll portrays Emperor Qianlong as a Chinese scholar seated before a screen and surrounded by antiques, some of which appear on a similarly designed multiple-lobed table on the right-hand side (see the painting illustrated on p. 24). Another version this painting, also from the Palace Museum, was included in the exhibition, La Cité interdite: vie publique et privé des empereurs de Chine 1644-1911, Musée Guimet, Paris, 1996, and illustrated in the Catalogue, no. 88, where this form of lobed table is clearly depicted.

For two similarly decorated lacquer tables using both qiangjin (incised gold) and tianqi (filled-in lacquer) techniques, see Zhongguo Qici Quanji, vol. 6, Qing, 1993, no. 119, for a waisted square table dated to the Kangxi period from the Palace Museum, Beijing; and a waisted circular table from the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, illustrated in Hai-wai Yi-chen: Chinese Art in Overseas Collections - Lacquerware, National Palace Museum, 1988, p. 190, no. 180.

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