Lot 212. A Huanghuali recessed-leg table (qiaotouan), Ming dynasty, 16th-17th century. Height 31 1/4  in., 79.4 cm; Width 55 in., 139.7 cm; Depth 16 1/4  in., 41.3 cm. Estimate 200,000 — 300,000 USD. Lot sold 250,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's 2015

the rectangular mitered, mortise and tenon frame top with a single flush, floating panel and inset everted ends, tongue and grooved into the inside edge of the frame with four transverse stretchers, all supported on four splayed, cylindrical legs joined by a plain apron with complex cloud collar spandrels and double stretchers to either side. 

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

Notes: Tables of this design with everted flanges are generally called qiaotouan 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 qiaotouan 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 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. Important Chinese Works of Art, New York, 17 mars 2015