Side Table with Everted Ends (late 1500s–1600s): Art, History and Details

Side Table with Everted Ends (late 1500s–1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Classic Chinese furniture is an art of carpentry and joinery, which makes use of a mortise-and-tenon framework. Design and craftsmanship, coupled with the organic material of the hardwood, create endless aesthetic possibilities. This side table is beautifully carved with cloud-collar spandrels on the aprons as well as openwork panels with cloud-collar patterns inset between the legs and the feet. The table has a narrow top in proportion to its length and bears the detail of the upturned ends that makes it more formal, and possibly used as an altar table.

Object facts

• Title: Side Table with Everted Ends
• Date: late 1500s–1600s
• Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Furniture and woodwork
• Technique: redwood veneer and camphor wood
• Dimensions: Overall: 88 x 51.8 cm (34 5/8 x 20 3/8 in.)
• Collection: China - Ming Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1955.42

A detail from the museum

Camphor wood is excellent for furniture making because of its attractive wood grain patterns and its distinctive scent that repels insects.

Collection credit

The Norweb Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kates, George N., Caroline Frances Bieber, Beatrice M. Kates, and Hedda Morrison. Chinese Household Furniture. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948.
• Lee, Sherman E. “Chinese Domestic Furniture.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 44, no. 3, 1957, pp. 48–53.
• Ellsworth, Robert Hatfield. Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Chʼing Dynasties. New Fairfield, CT: Robert H. Ellsworth, 1997.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.