A SMALL CHINESE MOTHER OF PEARL INLAID LACQUER TABLE

A SMALL CHINESE MOTHER OF PEARL INLAID LACQUER TABLE

LATE MING DYNASTY

The top decorated with a scene of scholars and their attendants in pavilions by a river, they play go, admire a tall standing crane, and aid a figure on a sampan bring the raft to the riverbank, with a recumbent stag and doe reclining in the garden, the landscape rich with bamboo, willow, pine and peach trees, decorated to the frieze with cartouches enclosing floral scrolls on a diaper ground, all raised on four short feet, 12.5cm x 55cm x 36cm.

Cf. Tangible Splendour: The Chi Chang Yuan Collection of Lacquer with Mother-of-Pearl Inlay, pp.70-71 for a 16th/17th century low table also with scholars in a garden; see also Sotheby's London, 12th May 2010, lot 100 for another related 16th century low table.