Chinese Stool with Rattan Inset Seat

Chipped, crackled and pale, this woven-top table has plainly had a life.

This stool with rattan inset seat is from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 19th century. It is lacquered elm wood & rattan. Once China slowly opened to visiting diplomats and businessmen, a trickle of antique furniture leaving the country became a flood that lasted through the 1980s, the 1990s and into the early 2000s. Small low table with a rounded thick frame around a dark woven panel. The wood is deeply crazed with patches of dark and light surface. Legs are stout, with a stretcher and small brackets. It is 18 inches long, 14 deep and 12 high.

Every crack in it is earned.