Chinese Tabletop Altar with 3 Drawers

Long, flat, dark red platform with three drawers and no ambition to be tall.

This tabletop altar 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. Very low, broad box with a plain dark top and three shallow drawers across the front, each with a small round pull. A narrow lower drawer or rail runs beneath. The reddish lacquer is rubbed and dull. It is 45.75 inches long, 7.5 deep and 8 high.

Nothing vertical about it, and no shame in that.