Page 163 - Bonhams Cornette Saint Cyr, Property from the estate of Jean-Pierre Rousset (1936-2021)

Fig.6, Late Ming dynasty, A tianqi and qiangjin lacquer table decorated with dragons and clouds,
Palace Museum, Beijing

The table legs are square and terminate in inward-curving hoof feet, The dragons carved on the resonance block and painted over the
with the middle sections carved in the form of leaves with raised Rousset guqin table are typical of the Wanli and Chongzhen period
edges. All four table legs are painted with dragons on a diaper ground. of the Ming dynasty. A number of Ming emperors were famous for
their enthusiasm for qin music, and the Chongzhen Emperor was
A comparable example of the Rousset guqin table is a red lacquered one of them. There are quite a few anecdotes about him and the
one in the Freer Gallery, whose tabletop is also a cloud and dragon instrument, one of which is the above-mentioned story of him ‘taking
patterned resonance block. It measures 101.2cm long, 33.8cm wide, the guogong zhuan (found in Henan during dam construction) into the
and 73.1cm high. The two tables are almost identical in size, shape, Imperial palace’. Wen Zhenheng, the author of the Changwuzhi 長物
and decorations of both tables are almost identical, except that the 誌 (Treatise on Superfluous Things), is also said to have ‘served the
one in the Freer Gallery is lacquered red, rather than black. It is very inner court with (his skills and knowledge of) qin music and theory’.
possible that they were made from the same batch. It is, therefore, reasonable to speculate that, in the early years of the
Chongzhen reign, when the state was still at peace, the emperor may
have had some leisure moments to devote to his passion for the qin
Guqin tables are a rare type among traditional Chinese furniture. To instrument and commissioned a number of high-quality qin and qin
the author’s knowledge, there are only a dozen known examples furniture for Court use, which may have included the Rousset guqin
which can be dated to the Ming and Qing dynasty. Even more rare table offered by Bonhams today.
are the guqin tables made for the Ming Court. The decoration and
shape of the Rousset guqin table are extremely similar to the tianqi and
qiangjin lacquer guqin table with clouds and dragons in the collection
of the Palace Museum, see also Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming Qing
Jiaju Quanji 故宮博物院藏明清傢具全集 [Complete Edition of Ming
and Qing Furniture Collected in the Palace Museum], vol.9, pp.951-
959, the Forbidden City Publishing Company, 2015) (fig.5). Another
comparable example is the tianqi and qiangjin lacquer bench with
cloud and dragon patterns in the collection of the Palace Museum, see
also Gugong Bowuyuan cang Ming Qing Jiaju Quanji 故宮博物院藏明
清傢具全集 [Complete Edition of Ming and Qing Furniture Collected in
the Palace Museum], vol.6, pp.300-305, the Forbidden City Publishing
Company, 2015) (fig.6). It is very likely that they were all court items
from the same period.

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