Chinese Wood Altar Table

Offerings once sat on tables like this. Mail will do nowadays.

This altar table comes from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 19th century. It is made of elmwood. In Chinese homes and temples, altar tables commonly held offerings, incense and images of ancestors or deities. Here the apron is grooved to look like a bundle of reeds, with cloud-shaped brackets cut along its lower edge. A low stretcher with short struts runs between the legs, which are long, round and plain. The grain is golden brown and strongly marked. Thirty-seven inches long and 34 high.

It holds whatever you place on it with equal gravity.