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3 août 2019

A very rare large huanghuali recessed-leg painting table, hua'an, 17th century

2014_NYR_02872_1110_000(a_very_rare_large_huanghuali_recessed-leg_painting_table_huaan_17th_ce)

Lot 1110. A very rare large huanghuali recessed-leg painting table, hua'an, 17th century; 31 7/8 in. (81 cm.) high, 77 in. (197 cm.) wide, 22 in. (56.5 cm.) deep. Estimate USD 200,000 - USD 300,000. Price realised USD 365,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2014

The beautifully proportioned table has an attractively figured single-panel top set within the wide, rectangular frame with beaded, thumb-grooved edge above plain aprons and spandrels. The whole is raised on thick legs of rounded section joined by pairs of stretchers.

Provenance: M.D. Flacks, Ltd.

Note: The recessed-leg table is amongst the most well-known and immediately recognizable forms found in classical Chinese furniture construction. Tables of this elegant and restrained form, with the graceful splay of the legs, trace their origins to furniture design of the Song dynasty, and several variations on this type are known. The basic proportions were adapted to make large painting tables, smaller tables, benches and stools. This form of table is referred to in the Lu Ban Jing as a 'Character One Table' due to its similarity in profile to the single horizontal stroke of the Chinese character for the number one. Tables of the size of the present table are generally referred to as painting tables.

One of the most impressive features of the present table is the long, single-panel, floating top. Tables using large sections of huanghuali, such as seen here, are often considered early examples, as the precious material became harder to acquire in subsequent years. The use of single-panel tops and thick sections for aprons, stretchers, and legs are also testament to the fact that the table would have been quite expensive, even at the time of manufacture, and therefore would have likely been in the household of a wealthy literati family. 

For a similar, although larger (89 in. long) huanghuali recessed-leg table, see the 16th-17th century example illustrated by Wang Shixiang and Curtis Evarts, Masterpieces from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture, Chicago, 1995, p. 114, no. 54, later sold at Christie's New York, 19 September 1996, lot 75. Evarts also points out that this basic form of table has been repeatedly depicted in paintings, as well, from as early as the Song dynasty (960 - 1279). See, also, Robert D. Jacobsen and Nicholas Grindley, Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1999, pp. 122-23, no. 40, for a similar example of this type dated to the 17th century, although somewhat longer (89 in.), it is of approximately equal depth (22 in.). For a third example, see Gustav Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture, Tokyo, 1962, pl. 46, no. 36.

Christie's. FINE CHINESE CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART, 18 – 19 September 2014, New York, Rockefeller Plaza

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