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Lot Essay
For a discussion of this form, and in particular, the present lot, refer to Sarah Handler's article, "Ablutions and Washing Clean: The Chinese Washbasin and Stand", Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Autumn 1991, pp. 23-6, and her expanded research in Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Berkeley, 2001, pp. 332-44.
The decorative elements such as the phoenix, combined with the birds, chime and stool in a garden setting, suggest that this stand may have been part of a bride's dowry, and would have stood in a Chinese lady's chamber.
Compare an elaborate example with similar hanging openwork spandrels and a central panel carved with blossoming magnolia, also with lotus finials, sold in these rooms, Important Chinese Furniture: Formerly the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture Collection, 21 September 1996, lot 101. A slightly plainer example is illustrated by Wang Shixiang in Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, vol. II, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 185, E43.
The decorative elements such as the phoenix, combined with the birds, chime and stool in a garden setting, suggest that this stand may have been part of a bride's dowry, and would have stood in a Chinese lady's chamber.
Compare an elaborate example with similar hanging openwork spandrels and a central panel carved with blossoming magnolia, also with lotus finials, sold in these rooms, Important Chinese Furniture: Formerly the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture Collection, 21 September 1996, lot 101. A slightly plainer example is illustrated by Wang Shixiang in Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, vol. II, Hong Kong, 1990, p. 185, E43.