Chinese Compound Shrine Cabinet with 3 Drawers

Dark carved house on cabriole legs, balancing a roof on a spindly stand.

This compound shrine cabinet with 3 drawers is from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 19th century. It is elm wood. 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. A miniature building with a tiled roof sits above a pierced, carved front with small columns. It rests on a drawered stand with tall curved legs that end in rounded feet. The wood is dark. It is 33 inches long, 20 deep and 74.75 high.

A tiny home on stilts and quite pleased about it.