17TH/18TH CENTURY

Games tables were very popular in the Ming period, and were made in both square and rectangular forms. Compare a square table with an elaborate apron illustrated by Wang Shixiang, Connoisseurship of Chinese Furniture: Ming and Early Qing Dynasties, Hong Kong, 1990, vol. I, p. 74, and vol. II, p. 120, B130. The author illustrates other games tables of various forms in vol. II, p. 119. A square example with a carved waist is illustrated by R.H. Ellsworth et al., Chinese Furniture: One Hundred Examples from the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection, New York, 1996, p. 147. no. 52. An unusual huanghuali square games table with cabriole legs and dragon spandrels is illustrated by C. Evarts, A Liesurely Pursuit: Splendid Hardwood Antiquities from the Liang Li Collection, Hong Kong, 2000, pp. 140-141, no. 45. Another square example in zitan in the T.T. Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, is illustrated by Tian Jiaqing, Classic Chinese Furniture of the Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1996, pp. 202-203, no. 92.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art both have examples of rectangular games tables in huanghuali. See J.G. Lee, "Chinese Furniture Collection," The Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. LVIII:276 (Winter 1963), p. 46, fig. e, and p. 70, fig. 14.
For a discussion of Chinese games and games tables, as well as an additional rectangular example with recessed legs, see R.D. Jacobsen, Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1999, pp. 114-117, no. 37.