The two-panel top is set in a rectangular frame above two drawers and a single floating panel, with a plain, beaded apron and spandrels below. The whole is raised on gently splayed, beaded legs joined by pairs of stretchers. 

Provenance: Sotheby’s New York, 6 May 1982, lot 289.
Nicholas Grindley, London, 1982. 

Exhibited: On loan: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1983-1994. 

Note: Compare a related two-drawer huanghuali coffer, set with everted ends and with a shaped, beaded apron, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, illustrated by C. Clunas, Chinese Furniture, London, 1998, p. 84, no. 67. See another two-drawer huanghuali coffer of related proportions sold at Christie's New York: The Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Part II: Chinese Furniturer, Scholar's Objects and Chinese Paintings, 18 March 2015, lot 167. For a discussion of this form, refer to Curtis Everts, "The Enigmatic Altar Coffer," Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, Autumn 1994, pp. 29-44.