Page 84 - Bonhams Art from the Scholar's Studio, September 16, 2013 NY

Property of an American Private Collection
8128
A fine huanghuali square table, fang zhuo
17th century
Based on a bamboo prototype, the richly figured two-board top set into a mitered, mortise and
tenon frame with ice-plate edge, over a beaded apron elegantly carved at each corner with bamboo
sprays under humpback stretchers wrapped around the vertical supports, the legs and stretchers
finely carved imitating solid stalks of bamboo.
33 7/8 x 35 1/4 x 35 1/4in (86 x 89.5 x 89.5cm)
$80,000 - 120,000
Provenance:
An Italian collection
Eskenazi Galleries, Milan
Since the Bronze Age, the fashioning of one material to take on the visual characteristics of another
has been a fascinating aesthetic strand in the history of Chinese art. With early bronze vessels
bearing imitation rope designs, or fine jade carved to appear as bamboo, or porcelain glazed and
painted with a wood grain, the art of crafting one material to imitate another has produced some
of the more compelling examples of Chinese material culture. It is interesting to note that in many
of these instances--the current table included--the craftsmen has taken great pains to enhance an
expensive or desired material, such as huanghuali wood, with added layers of meaning, giving it the
noble and resilient qualities inherent in its emulated material --- bamboo.

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