Chinese Double Gourd Altar Table, C. 1875

Details

Description

In households throughout China, long tables with everted ends were traditionally placed against the back wall of the main room … Read more In households throughout China, long tables with everted ends were traditionally placed against the back wall of the main room as an altar for ancestral tablets, Buddhist iconography or ceremonial offerings. Ideal today as a console table, this antique altar table dates to the late 19th century and is finely crafted of northern elm (yumu) with balanced proportions and mortise-and-tenon joinery.

The rectangular table has a floating-panel top with everted ends, carved with spirals to resemble swirling clouds or furled up scrolls. The round legs are linked by double stretchers and topped with relief carvings of double gourds growing on the vine. Depicting the calabash, or bottle gourd, this motif carries blessings of good health and longevity because dried gourds were used as natural vessels for medicine and water. See less