Chinese Wood Altar Table

Twelve inches deep. An altar table has no use for elbows.

This altar table comes from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 19th century. It is elmwood. Narrow tables of this kind stood against the wall in northern Chinese homes and ancestral halls, holding candles, incense and offerings where the family could face them. Four round legs rise straight to a thin dark top. Beneath it, a light frieze of paired spindles sits between slim rails, with almost nothing to interrupt the line. Thirty-seven inches long, 12 deep and 32.5 high.

Thin as it is, it holds its ground.