A zitan side table, zhuo, Late Ming dynasty | 明末 紫檀馬蹄足條桌

The Dr S Y Yip Collection.

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 6th October 2015, lot 137. 

攻玉山房收藏

香港蘇富比2015年10月6日，編號137

Grace Wu Bruce, Zitan Furniture from the Ming and Qing dynasties, Hong Kong Exhibition, Grace Wu Bruce, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 19.

Grace Wu Bruce, Feast by a wine table reclining on a couch: The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture III, Art Museum, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2007, cat. no. 45, pp. 136-137.

伍嘉恩，《紫檀家具精萃展》，嘉木堂，香港，1999年，頁19

伍嘉恩，《燕几衎榻：攻玉山房藏中國古典家具》，香港中文大學文物館，香港，2007年，編號45，頁136-137

Furniture pieces made of zitan dated to the Ming are very rare. Surviving examples are mostly the carved and decorated pieces of the eighteenth century or the plain ones of the late nineteenth and twentieth century.

This Ming design, seen already in wall murals of the Jin and Yuan dynasties (1115-1368, is hailed by furniture historians to be an all-time classic. For a similar huanghuali but smaller example see Craig Clunas, Chinese Furniture, Victoria and Albert Museum, Far Eastern Series, London, 1988, p. 48. Another example, also smaller, the collection of the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts, Beijing, is published in Chen Zengbi, Zhongyang Gongyi Meishu Xueyuan Yuancang: Zhenpin Tulu [Central Academy of Arts and Crafts: Illustrations of collections], vol. 2: Mingshi Jiaju [Ming Furniture], Hong Kong, 1994, p. 35.

桌面為標準格角榫攢邊打槽平鑲五拼板面心，下裝四根穿帶出梢支承。抹頭可見明榫。邊抹冰盤沿打窪再向下內縮至底壓窄平線。束腰與起線的直牙條為一木連做，以抱肩榫與腿足，桌面結合，腿足頂端出雙榫納入桌框底部，下展至底收以形狀美好的馬蹄足。牙條下有羅鍋棖以榫卯納入四足間。

明代紫檀家具甚罕，傳世品多為十八世紀帶有繁瑣雕飾者，或造型簡單屬十九世紀末至二十世紀作品。

金元兩朝的壁畫中，已見此明代大盛的設計，家具專家學者均推崇為永恆的經典代表。柯律格，《英國國立維多利亞與艾爾伯特博物館．東亞系列．中國家具》，倫敦，1988，頁48載錄一具相似但體型較小的黃花梨例。另一體型較小之黃花梨例，見北京中央工藝美術學院藏品，載於陳增弼，《中央工藝美術學院院藏珍品圖錄》，卷2：明式家具，香港，1994年，頁35。