THE EMPEROR WANLI’S TABLE A MAGNIFICENT AND EXTREMELY RARE ‘NINE DRAGON’ BLACK-GROUND AND GILT LACQUER WINE TABLE MARK AND PERIOD OF WANLI

the table top superbly and meticulously pencilled in gilt and rendered in varying shades of red, yellow and orange with a central lobed cartouche within a rectangular panel enclosing to the centre a magnificent five-clawed dragon, impressively rendered to portray a ferocious expression with gaping jaws revealing sharp fangs, bulbous eyes and flaring nostrils, its scaly body leaping above turbulent crashing waves in pursuit of a flaming pearl, flanked by a pair of dragons amid swirling clouds and flames, the border decorated with four lobed cartouches enclosing six further dragons striding through clouds and flames chasing flaming pearls, either as a confronting pair in mutual pursuit or as a single dragon, with a floral medallion to the corners of the table, all reserved on a cash-diaper ground, the sides similarly decorated with eight dragons chasing flaming pearls, the rectangular top resting on a scrolling apron decorated with a further twenty dragons, supported by elegant slightly recessed ‘sword-style’ legs joined by twin stretchers on the sides, terminating in gilt-metal capped hoof feet, with another eight dragons to the stretchers, the backside of the apron and stretchers decorated with swirls of stylised clouds, inscribed in gilt with the six-character mark to the underside on the raised centre section 

From an Old European Collection.