Lot 83. An elegant zitan low table, kangzhuo, Qing dynasty, 18th century; 11 3/8 x 34 1/2 x 20 5/8in (28.8 x 87.2 x 52.8cm). Sold for US$57,075 (Estimate: US$30,000 - US$50,000). © Bonhams 2001-2023

The finely figured waisted low table composed of a two-board top tongue-and-grooved into a mitered, mortise and tenon frame supported by three transverse stretchers hidden-tenoned into the frame top, the thick, one-piece boards of the recessed waist and beaded aprons each mitered, mortise-and-tenoned to the bowed legs and hoof feet. 

The Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection

Provenance: Grace Wu Bruce, Hong Kong, 18 April 1994.

Note: Though unadorned and of simple outline, this type of kangzhuo (low table) is illustrated in Wang Shixiang's Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture (Chicago, 1990) as a special design; see Volume I, p. 49, no. B2 for the explanatory text and Volume II, p. 62, no. B2 for Wang Shixiang's plain line sketch of a table of very close design. The more commonly seen kang table has straight or slightly incurved legs that end in hoof feet, while the present lot features robust outwardly curved legs of gutui pengya construction. A huanghuali kang table of this type was in the collection of Laurence Sickman (1907-1988), illustrated in Gustav Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture, (Rutland & Tokyo, 1962), pl. 3 top. 

Bonhams. THE MARY AND CHENEY COWLES COLLECTION OF CLASSICAL CHINESE FURNITURE, 20 March 2023, New York