Page 26 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

DONGXI STUDIO
PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE BELGIAN COLLECTION

1314

A VERY RARE HUANGHUALI TRESTLE-LEG TABLE, QIAOTOU’AN
16TH-17TH CENTURY

The massive plank is carved with a molded edge and is set with
everted ends, above a thick beaded apron and ruyi-form spandrels.
The whole is raised on thick trestle legs joined by an openwork panel
fnely carved with a single, large lingzhi stem and ftted into shoe feet.

36º in. (92.1 cm.) high, 85Ω in. (217.2 cm.) wide, 17æ in. (45.1 cm.)
deep

$400,000-600,000

PROVENANCE

Christie’s New York, 1 December 1994, lot 217.

Lingzhi-form end panels appear to have been a popular decorative theme on
demountable huanghuali tables during the late Ming and early Qing dynasty,
and seem to have featured predominantly on tables of exceptional length.
The size and orientation of the openwork lingzhi elements vary widely, but
the association of lingzhi with immortality clearly appealed to scholars, and
the bold, simple rounded lines of the lingzhi work well to soften the rigid
angular lines of the trestle-leg table. A rare tielimu table, with an inscription
dating it to 1640, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, carved with large pendent
lingzhi on the openwork panels, is illustrated and discussed by S. Handler,
Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, Berkeley, 2001, p. 226,
pl. 14.3 where the author also illustrates a Chongzhen period (1628-1644)
woodblock print depicting a scene from the Jin Ping Mei, in which a table
with upright lingzhi panels is shown being used as a side table in a reception
hall. Other examples of huanghuali demountable trestle-leg tables with
lingzhi-shaped panels include one sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, Ming
Furniture – The Dr. S.Y. Yip Collection, 7 October 2015, lot 127; a very large
example sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27 November 2007, lot 1823; and an
example from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, illustrated by R. H.
Ellsworth in Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and
Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, pp. 174-75.
明十六/十七世紀 黃花梨如意紋翹頭案