Chinese Altar Table with Cloud Motif

Altar-style table, dark and elongated, with scrolled ends that curl like fiddleheads.

This altar table with cloud motif is from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 18th century. It is elm wood & cypress. 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. Slim rectangular top with up-curved ends. Beneath, carved scroll brackets turn at each corner, and two narrow panel legs hold the whole thing up. The finish is a deep purple-brown with rubbed edges and a subdued shine. It is 100.25 inches long, 25.5 deep and 33.5 high.

Thin, long, and elegantly curled at both ends.