Page 156 - SOTHEBYS MARCH 18 AND 19 2025

Fig 1. Anonymous (Ming Dynasty), The Eighteen Scholars,
ink and color on silk, hanging scroll © National Palace
Museum, Taipei
圖1 佚名(明) 宋人十八學士圖 設色絹本 立軸 © 國立故宮
博物院，臺北

Sumptuously carved and constructed from the finest timber, scholars engaged in various activities befitting men of high
the present table is illustrative of the widespread interest rank; one of the paintings, showing scholars playing the
in archaism and antiquity during the late Ming dynasty. The game of weiqi, includes a vignette of an attendant tying a
cusped aprons harken back to some of the earliest known bundle of scrolls together on a table remarkably similar
furniture forms in Chinese history – see, for instance, a in form to the present example. The table in the painting,
couch bed with elaborate wave-like aprons illustrated on laden with books, ceramics and delicate porcelain bowls,
a lacquer screen found in the tomb of Sima Jinlong of has cusped aprons and a short waist, as in the current table,
the Northern Wei dynasty, excavated in Datong, Shanxi and differs only from the lack of humpback stretchers and
Province, illustrated by Sarah Handler in Austere Luminosity the inclusion of ruyi-form flanges on the legs. Ming-dynasty
of Classical Chinese Furniture, Berkeley, 2001, p. 123, paintings depicting scholars at leisure or in the studio are
fig. 9.2 – and the rectangular, key fret scroll carved to the invaluable for determining exactly how works of furniture
aprons has antecedents in bronze casting dating as early as would have been used at the time of their manufacture.
the Shang dynasty, more than three thousand years ago.
Compare the present table to an example of near-identical
By the Ming dynasty, furniture tastes had shifted from dimensions and remarkably similar form in the collection of
ornate works in lacquer to more versatile and durable the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Hu Desheng in
examples in hardwoods such as huanghuali and tielimu. Rich A Treasury of Ming & Qing Dynasty Palace Furniture, vol. I,
patrons, usually of the scholarly official set, commissioned Beijing, 2007, p. 181, fig. 188. See, also, a similar example
a variety of tables for different purposes. The present table, of comparable size but with a stone-inset top illustrated by
of a type usually referred to as a tiaozhuo, often served to Grace Wu Bruce in Two Decades of Ming Furniture, Beijing,
display flowers or antiques around the home or scholar’s 2010, p. 35. A smaller table of the same form and similar
studio, and thanks to the resilience of its material, could decoration was sold at Christie’s New York, 13th September
even be moved into the garden during alfresco events. 2019, lot 886, and a tiaozhuo with straight, undecorated
A set of hanging scrolls in the collection of the National aprons was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 5th October 2016,
Palace Museum, Taipei, entitled “The Eighteen Scholars,” lot 3019 for one million Hong Kong dollars.
(Fig. 1), by an anonymous artist of the Ming dynasty, depicts

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