Petite Primitive Scroll Table

During winter in the colder provinces of China, life revolved around the kang, a heated brick platform that household members would sit or recline upon. Placed on top of the kang, low tables provided a convenient surface for dining, drinking tea, or playing games.

This low table of waterfall form would have been used atop the kang as a study desk, an elevated surface for scrolls and manuscripts. Crafted with mortise-and-tenon joinery, the streamlined form flows as one continuous line down straight sides and is minimally decorated with ogee cutouts and stepped spandrels. Formed of northern elm (yumu) with distinctive grain patterns and a richly aged patina, this scroll table is ideal today as a tabletop pedestal or footrest.