Chinese Lattice Cabinet with 2 Doors

Lattice cabinet doors let the interior peek out.

This lattice cabinet with 2 doors is from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the early 19th century. It is carved elm wood. Tibetans were traditionally semi-nomadic and owned few personal furnishings, so most Tibetan furniture stood in monasteries, and some of it was carted over the Himalayas to India as monasteries were destroyed. Two doors filled with grids of slender vertical and horizontal slats, set under a plain overhanging cornice. Below, a pair of small drawers run above straight legs. The finish is warm reddish brown with worn edges. It is 39 inches long, 19.5 deep and 58.25 high.

Transparent about everything except what is inside.