Chinese Deco Style Altar Table

Yellow as a warning sign, and cracked like a dry lake bed.

This Deco style altar table is contemporary, from China, with a crackle finish lacquer on elm wood. Traditional Chinese altar tables held incense, offerings and family tablets in the main hall of a home. This one borrows the form and takes it somewhere livelier. The bright yellow lacquer breaks across every surface into a web of black fissures. Waisted stretchers join the legs, and each leg ends in a small inward-turned foot. It measures 37 inches long, 18 deep and 32 high.

Crazed on purpose, which is more than most furniture can claim.