A carved black lacquer table top, Warring States Period. Photo Sotheby's

the curved slab carved with two rectangular integral ends detailed with scrolls resembling the eyes of mythical beasts, the top surface further incised with two panels framed by clustered geometric motifs evoking stylised taotie masks along the edges and down the centre, the underside with six mortises at each end for fitting upright legs with tenons and four further tenons in the slab for secondary legs fitted diagonally to provide reinforcement, lacquered in a deep brownish-black; 54 by 23.6 by 5.6 cm., 21 1/4 by 9 1/4 by 2 1/4 in. Estimation 100,000 — 150,000 HKD

Exposition: Layered Beauty: The Baoyizhai Collection of Chinese Lacquer, Art Museum, Institute of Chinese Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2010, cat. no. 1.

Surviving early lacquer furniture pieces are extremely rare, although a closely related example, in the collection of the Cultural Relics Bureau of Henan province is illustrated in Zhongguo qiqi quanji, vol. 1, Fujian, pl. 134. The decoration on the Henan table is fashioned in the same technique and style as that seen on the present piece, suggesting that the two may come from the same region, i.e. present-day Henan province, which during the Warring States period covered much of the Wei and Chu states. See a further example of a table with a similar top published in Chinese Lacquer, Part I, Taipei, 1982, p. 201, fig. 10.3

Compare other lacquered furniture items, similarly attributed to the Warring States period, included ibid., pls. 132, 133, 135 and 136, from tombs excavated in Hunan, Hubei and Henan provinces respectively.

Sotheby's. The Baoyizhai Collection of Chinese Lacquer, Part 1, Hong Kong | 08 avr. 2014 - www.sothebys.com