Lot 275. An ivory-inlaid huanghuali square gaming table, qizhuo, 18th century;  88cm x 88cm （34 5/8in x 34 5/8in) square x 47cm (18 1/2in) high. Estimate £ 80,000-120,000. Sold for £ 152,500 (€ 171,054). Photo Bonhams.

The table top with a removable central panel revealing the recessed gaming board inlaid with ivory markings, the board flanked by two wooden flaps concealing boxes for gaming chips, all framed by border panels with bevelled edges set with two recessed square containers with covers, all above a solid apron with rounded decorative struts and edges, raised on four straight cylindrical legs.

Provenance: an English private collection, according to the owner acquired circa 1985.

Note: Gaming tables of varying structures were used in China as early as the Zhou dynasty, with unearthed examples dating to the early Warring States period (circa 5th century BC) and the Tang dynasty, see R.H.Ellsworth, N.Grindley and A.Christy in Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, Catalogue, p.146. A black lacquered gaming table encompassing a weiqi board from the Wanli period is in the Qing Court Collection, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (I), Hong Kong, 2002, pl.105.

Related huanghuali gaming tables are also in important private collections. See an earlier huanghuali square gaming table, early Qing dynasty, 17th century, with a central weiqi board, illustrated by R.H.Ellsworth, N.Grindley and A.Christy, Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, Catalogue, no.52; compare a similar table but made of zitan, early Qing dynasty, with diagonally placed openings (as on the present lot), illustrated by Tian Jiaqing, Classic Chinese Furniture of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1995, pl.92. See also a related gaming table, late 16th/early 17th century, illustrated by Grace Wu Bruce, The Dr S.Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture, Hong Kong, 1991, pl.28.

Bonham's. Fine Chinese Art, London, New Bond Street, 14 May 2015