Low Table
- 202
Traditionally, Chinese people sat on mats on the floor, and scholars used tables such as this one to write calligraphy. By the Ming period (1368–1644), however, many Chinese people sat on chairs or couches. This relatively high table might be a couch table, like the one around the corner.
With Otto Burchard (1892-1965), Peking (now Beijing), China and New York, by 1944-October 1946 [1];
Purchased from Burchard by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1946.
NOTES:
[1] This couch was published as in Burchard's collection in Gustav Ecke, Chinese Domestic Furniture (Peking: Henri Vetch, 1944), no. 59. It was part of a group of furniture Otto Burchard brought with him when he moved from China to the United States in 1946. This group was first mentioned by Laurence Sickman, Curator of Asian Art, in a letter to J.C. Nichols, Nelson-Atkins Trustee, February 19, 1946, Nelson-Atkins Archives, RG80-15 William Rockhill Nelson Trust Records, box 9, folder 11.
