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PROPERTY FROM A CALIFORNIA FAMILY COLLECTION Tables of this type are very practical as they were used for
both dining and playing games. They were frequently depicted
A ‘HUANGHUALI’ SQUARE GAMES TABLE in contemporary paintings and woodblock illustrations and
QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY often shown used by ladies, as in the painting Fang ting cai
hua [Picking owers by a pavilion] by the painter Yao Wen-han
the three-board top, set within a standard mortise, tenon and ( . mid. 18th century), in the National Palace Museum, Taipei,
mitered frame, detachable revealing a separate, gilt wire inlaid, included in the Museum’s exhibition New Visions at the Ch’ing
double-sided shangqi / weiqi board set to either side with a Court. Giuseppe Castiglione and Western-Style Trends, Taipei,
circular compartment for game pieces, the tray beneath with 2007, cat. no. 32. The form is also very practical, with the high
gilt wire inlaid shuanglu playing board, anked by two narrow stretcher well placed to provide strength to the structure while
compartments with hinged covers, the molded edge frame of allowing ample room to sit comfortably.
the table above a recessed waist containing a small conforming
drawer to each side, the square section legs joined by high Games tables have a long history in China, with early surviving
humpback stretchers with beaded edge and terminating in examples used for the divination game liubo dating to the
hoof feet Eastern Han dynasty (AD 25-220). Tables constructed with
Height 32½ in., 82.6 cm; Width 33⅞ in., 86 cm; Depth 33⅞ in., weiqi boards originated in the Tang dynasty (618-906), and
86 cm their popularity signi cantly grew during the Song dynasty
(960-1279). Sarah Handler in Austere Luminosity of Chinese
PROVENANCE Classical Furniture, Berkeley, 2001, p. 187, notes that
according to literary sources the Xuanzong Emperor was very
Acquired in the 1960s-80s, and thence by descent. fond of this game and “once, when the Precious Consort saw
that he was losing she untied one of her miniature dogs, which
Ⴚ$ 80,000-120,000 promptly jumped onto the board and disarranged the pieces,
to the emperor’s delight”.
1960 1980 A similar huanghuali square games table, but with S-shaped
braces, in the Philadelphia Museum, Philadelphia, is illustrated
Robert Hat eld Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture. Hardwood
Examples of the Ming and Early Ch’ing Dynasties, New York,
1971, pl. 73, together with one in the Cleveland Museum of Art,
Cleveland, pl. 74; another was sold in these rooms, 9th/10th
October 1987, lot 398; another in our London rooms, 11th
November 2015, lot 12; a fourth table was sold at Christie’s
Hong Kong, 3rd December 2008, lot 2531; and a rectangular
example, from the collection of Robert Hat eld Ellsworth, was
sold at Christie’s New York, 17th March 2015, lot 44.
106 SOTHEBY’S
