Lot 20. A huanghuali recessed-leg long table (qiaotouan), Qing dynasty, 17th-18th century. Estimation 80,000 — 120,000 USD. Photo Sotheby's.

the top a two-board floating panel tongue-and-grooved to the frame with shaped everted flanges, the edge of the frame molded inward terminating with a beaded edge, over a beaded-edge wide apron with a central arch suspending a single fuschia-like bloom, inset on one side with a pair of narrow drawers, the beaded cloud-scroll spandrels set on gently bidirectional played legs of circular section, joined by oval section double stretchers on each short side, the underside with three transverse stretchers. Height  36 in., 91.4 cm; Width 67 1/2  in., 171.5 cm; Depth 18 1/2  in., 47 cm.

Provenance: Imperial Palace, Rehe (by repute).
General Tang Yulin (by repute).
Collection of Mr. & Mrs. John F. Kullgren, Los Angeles, California. 
Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 4th-5th December 1958, lot 403.

Exhibition: Los Angeles County Art Museum, Los Angeles, California, 1942-1948.

Bibliography: Gregor Norman Wilcox, 'Early Furniture (II)', The Magazine Antiques, April 1943, pp. 167-170. 
Reprinted in Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Autumn 1991, p. 61.

Notes: The wide scrolling and cusped apron on the present long table is unusual. The bold carving and emphatic curve of the apron and spandrels suggest an early Qing dynasty reference to a Ming dynasty or earlier prototype. Archaic references were popular during the early Qing dynasty but the present form does not merely imitate, it is distinctive in its interpretation of an earlier style. A related table with a deep apron is in The Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City.  

Sotheby's. The Reverend Richard Fabian Collection of Chinese Classical Furniture, New York, 15 mars 2016, 10:00 AM