Lot 41. A 'huanghuali' recessed-leg table (Qiaotouan), Ming dynasty, 16th-17th century; Height 79.4 cm; Width 139.7 cm; Depth 41.3 cm. Lot Sold 120,000 USD (Estimate 30,000 - 50,000 USD). © Sotheby's 2024

Provenance: Nicholas Grindley, Barling of Mount Street, London, 13th July 1992. 

Important American Private Collection.

Sotheby's New York, 17th March 2015, lot 212.

Note: Tables of this design with everted flanges are generally called qiaotou'an or 'raised end tables'. According to Craig Clunas in Chinese Furniture, London, 1988, p. 51, such tables were employed in secular contexts, set against walls as surfaces on which to display antiques or art objects. A 1616 edition of a woodblock illustration from the novel Jin ping mei (The Golden Lotus) shows a qiaotou'an of this type placed against a screen and used for displaying a single flower vase and other artifacts.

Recessed legs tables with cloud-shaped spandrels and double stretchers were produced with raised and straight ends and of varying lengths from small highly mobile side tables, such as the present example, to those with ample surfaces for painting and viewing large handscrolls. It is the success of the basic design with its pleasing proportions and balance of the rectilinear and curvilinear elements that allow for such wide adaptation. For a very closely related example from the Victoria and Albert Museum see Craig Clunas, ibid., ills 38, 39, p. 52. Another related table of similar dimension and form is illustrated in Grace Wu Bruce, Dreams of Chu Tan Chamber and Romance with Huanghuali Wood: The Dr. S.Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture, Hong Kong, 1991, cat. no. 18, pp 58-59.

Sotheby's. Chinese Art, New York, 3 September - 18 September 2024