ILLUSTRATED:
Taiwan Antique Dealers' Association 2000, Jeff Hsu's Oriental Art, Taipei, 1999, p. 62.
Taiwan Antique Dealers' Association 2006, Taiwan Antique Dealers' Association, Taipei, 2006, pp. 30-31.
Capital Museum Huanghuali Culture Exhibition, Collection magazine, Beijing, 2011, p. 27.
Ching Wan Society Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition, Ching Wan Society, Taipei, 2012, pp. 276-277.

The furniture piece features a sleek silhouette and a simple style. Within its elegant and sleek silhouette, a triplecurved flower medallion is placed above each of the arch-shaped horizontal high stretchers. The stretchers are made from whole huanghuali wood, making this piece a rarity among its peers. The piece features a special and rare design comprised of stretchers and legs decorated with gourd-shaped ridges. Aside from requiring more material when manufacturing, the design also offers an elegant silhouette along the round sculptures. Most tables with lined or ridged legs are unwaisted, and this piece is no exception. The combination of the medallion and the arch-shaped high stretchers not only provide a perfect finishing touch to the style, but also reinforces the whole structure. With a befitting overall proportion and a sense of elegance within rigidity, this is a unique masterpiece among huanghuali furnitures.

The development of Chinese tall furniture started during the era of the Five Dynasties. After further development in the Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan dynasties, a unique style was born by the Ming dynasty, later known as Ming furniture. Ming furniture is representative of the style behind Chinese furniture culture. Among furniture systems, they are highly renowned, even hailed as the “Star of Eastern art”. Ming furniture emphasizes on elegant styles, handpicked materials and fine manufacturing processes. With a level of simplicity, elegance, and purity, as well as powerful and majestic qualities in their rectangular shapes and befitting proportions, Ming furniture is described as having “aesthetic concepts with practical value”. The artistic style of Ming furniture can be defined by their ancient, elegant, sophisticated, and beautiful qualities. They combine excellent craftsmanship with literati aesthetics during the Ming dynasty. Tables with different heights served as tools on which literati spent most of their daily lives. By combining functionality with aesthetics, they have pushed the simplicity and purity of Ming furniture and the quality of those literati to the limits. The literati of the Ming dynasty were obsessed with the pursuit and development of furniture craftsmanship and aesthetics. Their mindset for using, collecting, writing about and designing furniture created a cultural phenomenon. And, it is these involvements that brought Ming furniture to a mature state.