Chinese Low Table with Stone Inset Top

Black lacquer and green stone with swirls in it, like a pond seen from a great height.

This low table with stone inset top is from Shanxi Province, China, and is contemporary, made of lacquered elm wood and stone. Low tables of this type were used on the kang, the heated brick platform at the heart of many northern Chinese homes, for meals, tea and conversation. Here a square of sage green stone, swirled with paler eddies and veins, sits inside a glossy black lacquered frame. The apron curves down into four stout legs with inward-turning hoof feet. It is 31 inches square and 18 high.

Quietly dramatic, the way black lacquer tends to be.