A TIANQI LACQUER RECTANGULAR LOW TABLE, KANGZHUO17th/18th century The rectangular top engraved and painted in colours with a petal-lobed oval panel enclosing exotic long-tailed birds perched on a flowering plum tree, all reserved on a floral-diaper black and brown ground, the corners with chrysanthemum sprays, all above a pierced frieze and supported on four very short curling legs with a shaped apron decorated with blossoming branches, the underside lacquered black. 54.6cm (21 1/2in) wide x 34cm (13 1/2in) deep x 14.5cm (5 3/4in) high. 十七/十八世紀 填漆花鳥紋炕桌 Provenance: London, 11 June 2003, lot 83. 來源：倫敦邦瀚斯，2003年6月11日，拍品編號83 Kang tables played an important role in northern Chinese society, where they were typically placed atop heated platforms to serve as desks, dining and tea tables; they also held books, vases of flowers, incense burners and other objects. Smaller low tables were also placed on canopy beds, daybeds and couch-beds; see S.Handler, The Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture , Hong Kong, 2001, pp.161-175. pare with a related brown lacquer kang table, 16th century, engraved and coloured with dragons, illustrated by Lee Yu-kuan, Oriental Lacquer Art , New York and Tokyo, 1972, p.321, no.246. Another related tianqi lacquer kang table, 16th/17th century, is illustrated by M.Hughes, An Important Collection of Chinese, Korean, and Ryukyuan Lacquer , New York, 2006, p.50, no.35. A lobed qiangjin and tianqi lacquer flower and bird kang table, 17th century, is illustrated in The Creation of Natural Immensity and Grandeur: The Yang Ming Shan Collection of Lacquer from Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties , Beijing, 2020, pp.134-135, no.40.