A RARE GREEN-GLAZED POTTERY TABLE WITH DETACHABLE LEGS

HAN DYNASTY

Details
A RARE GREEN-GLAZED POTTERY TABLE WITH DETACHABLE LEGS
Han Dynasty
The rectangular tray with a wide rim, the underside molded with two struts pierced at each end with square apertures, the four hipped legs with hoof feet, each with a protruding square tab to fit into the apertures of the tray to form a low serving table, the clay covered all over with a dark green glaze now iridescent in parts, the legs similarly glazed
16½in. (41.8cm.) long
Further details
See illustration and detail

Lot Essay

Tables of this type were made in lacquered wood, bronze and clay and have been found in Han tombs, including a very similarly constructed pottery example from a Han burial site in Huixian, Henan. See Wenwu, 1979:9, p. 70, fig. 7. A very similar green-glazed model of a table, also with detachable legs simulating hooved animal's feet, is discussed by Ferguson in "Chinese Furniture", Tianxia Monthly, March, 1937, pp. 246-253, fig. 1a, and also in his Survey of Chinese Art, Shanghai, 1940, pp. 109-115, pl. 176a

See, also, the Han mural painting depicting an ancestral offering scene with figures kneeling before a low table similar to the present lot from the central chamber of the five-chambered tomb at Yingchengci, South Manchuria, published by Wilma Fairbank in Adventures in Retrieval, Han Murals and Shang Bronze Molds, Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies, 1972, XXVII, fig. 13

A green-glazed pottery example is illustrated by R.L. Hobson, The George Eumorfopoulos Collection, Catalogue, vol. I, London, 1925, plate VIII, no. 50; and another was sold in these rooms, December 2, 1986, lot 61

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. C97d1 is consistent with the dating of this lot