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.
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.