Couch Table
- 202
This is the oldest type of Chinese table. In ancient times, before the chair was introduced, the Chinese sat on woven mats with minimal furniture such as low tables and armrests. As couches became popular the low table was transferred to the couch. This is a particularly fine example, with strongly carved “elephant trunk” legs. This shape influenced European furniture during the eighteenth century, where these legs were termed “cabriole.”
Charlotte Horstmann Ltd.;
Purchased from Charlotte Horstmann Ltd. through Kenneth A. and Helen F. Spencer Foundation Acquisition Fund by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1972.
Robert H. Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ch’ing Dynasties (New York: Random House, 1971), 248, 150, no. 45 (repro.).
Laurence Sickman, “Simplicity and Subtlety: The Decorative Arts in China” Apollo, special issue for the Asian art collection in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Vol. XCVII, no. 133 (March 1973), 270, no. 8 (repro.).
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 343 (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 357 (repro.).
