Low Table (kang zhuo) with Dragons in Clouds
1600s–1700s
- Medium
- Rosewood (huanghuali) and metal
- Classification
- Furniture and woodwork
- Dimensions
- Overall: 29 x 97.2 x 69.2 cm (11 7/16 x 38 1/4 x 27 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- China, Ming dynasty (1368-1644) or Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Chinese Art
- Credit line
- Severance and Greta Millikin Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Originally, low tables were placed on a kang, a raised platform made of brick and heated by a fire underneath, which served as a bed and living space on cold winter days in northern China. During the daytime, these platforms could accommodate two sitters with a kang table placed between them.
In the warmer south, kang tables were used on daybeds made of wood. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, furniture makers used rare tropical hardwood, such as huanghuali, known as rosewood.
