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Lot Essay
The technique tianqi, known as 'lacque cuir' in French or 'leather lacquer', involves the building up of layers of lacquer over wood covered in hemp cloth. Each layer is left to dry and then polished down; once thick enough the design is incised on the surface and these areas are outlined with gilt and filled in with lacquers of various colours including tones of red ochre, green, black and brown. This extremely time-consuming technique would have been expensive and such furniture, such as the current lot, would therefore have been for the Qing elite.
Compare the similar free style of decoration on the top of the stool-table formerly in the C.T. Loo Collection illustrated in Michel Beurdeley, Chinese Furniture, New York, 1979, p. 113, no. 154. See also comparable tables with tianqi lacquer in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Hong Kong, 2002, nos. 91 and 104.
Compare the similar free style of decoration on the top of the stool-table formerly in the C.T. Loo Collection illustrated in Michel Beurdeley, Chinese Furniture, New York, 1979, p. 113, no. 154. See also comparable tables with tianqi lacquer in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Hong Kong, 2002, nos. 91 and 104.