Large painting table, Huanghuali wood Late Ming (1573 – 1644)

A huanghuali painting table of high rectangular form, the top standard mitre, mortise, and tenon construction, with a flush, beautifully grained single-board, tongue-and-grooved, floating panel supported by four dovetailed stretchers underneath. The edge of the frame is gently rounded and the aprons, moulded to appear as two rounded members with small rounded end pieces, are actually made of one piece of wood and are dovetailed into the rounded legs to meet up with each other. Below them, the rounded, humpback-shaped stretchers, also dovetailed into the legs to meet up with each other, are probably hidden tenoned to the underside of the aprons. The round legs are double tenoned into the frame top. There are S-shaped braces mortised and tenoned to the legs and half-lapped and woodpinned to the braces at the ends beneath the table.

Hong Kong, 1991, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, “The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture”
Singapore, 1997 – 1999, Asian Civilisations Museum, “The Chinese Collection”
Berlin, 2000 – 2002, Museum Für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin

Grace Wu Bruce, Dreams of Chu Tan Chamber and the Romance with Huanghuali Wood: The Dr. S. Y. Yip Collection of Classic Chinese Furniture, Hong Kong, 1991, pp. 72 – 73
Yip Shing Yiu, ‘Collecting Ming Furniture of Huang Hua-Li Wood’, Arts of Asia, May – June 1991, Hong Kong, p. 120

Similar example:
There are few zhuo tables of sufficient depth to be called painting tables and there are no comparable published pieces of a similar
design
A painting table of similar size but of a waisted and hoof feet design is illustrated in Grace Wu Bruce, Sublime and Divine Chinese Ming Furniture, Hong Kong, 2014, pp. 114 – 119

Painting tables, large scale pieces of a certain depth suitable to be used as desks, belong to the rarest type of tables in surviving examples of Ming furniture.
Bamboo or cane furniture were often depicted in Song (960–1280) and Ming (1368–1644) paintings. Guotui or “wrap around the legs” method of making furniture with precious hard wood was inspired by their bamboo counterparts. This table with its rounded surfaces and round legs was designed to portray a bamboo table. The usage of precious hardwood to simulate common material illustrates the sensibilities of understatement considered high form by the Ming elite.
This excellent example has all round or rounded members, drawing its influence from bamboo furniture design. The normally straight or humpback-shaped stretchers below the aprons are curved to join up with the aprons in order to make more legroom. The decrease in stability caused by this feature is compensated by S-shaped braces, mortised and tenoned to the legs and the transverse brace underneath the table.