Chinese Wood Kang Table

A rectangular table with a spindled railing and a bamboo-style lower frame.

This kang table is from Sichuan Province, China, and dates to the 19th century. It is bamboo & 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. Dark top over a row of upright spindles forming a gallery along the sides. Slender turned legs are joined by diagonal stretchers that look like bamboo, and the finish shows red-brown lacquer worn to bare patches. It is 28 inches long, 18 deep and 14 high.

Part furniture, part tiny fence.