Chinese Parsons Style Table

Low, waterfall-edged platform with a faint golden sheen and a whisper of slat marks.

This parsons style table is from Suizhou, Hubei Province, China, and dates to the 18th century. It is lacquered oriental poplar. 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. Long flat top that turns down at both ends in solid panels, with no visible legs. Surface is olive gold, blotchy and scuffed, and thin parallel lines run across the top. Simple, clean silhouette, low to the ground. It is 91 inches long, 34 deep and 32 high.

Minimalism was apparently invented several times.