18TH CENTURY

Christie's is pleased to offer the present huanghuali recessed-leg table from the collection of Major A. Preston Moore, Sr. (1916-1990), and A. Preston Moore, Jr. Major Moore was raised in Blacksburg, Virginia, and after attending Washington Lee University in 1937, he worked briefly for Philip Morris and Senator Carter Glass before joining the United States Marines at the outbreak of World War II. After retiring from his career as a pilot in Southeast Asia in the Marine Air Corps in 1946, Major Moore secured a job as Captain and pilot working for the China National Aviation Company (CNAC), and resided in Hamilton House in Shanghai until his departure in 1949. He furnished his apartment with Chinese antiques and furniture, primarily acquired in Beijing. In 1949-50, Major Moore left China and returned to Virginia, where heworked at his alma mater Woodberry Forest School until his retirement to Charlottesville, Virginia in 1981. The Chinese furniture in Major Moore's collection continued to have an important place in the centre of the family home until his death in 1990, after which time the present table passed to A.Preston Moore, Jr.

The present table is closely related to a huanghuali recessed-leg table of 17th century date sold by Christie's, New York, 22-23 March 2012, lot 1746. Both tables have long, single-panel tops and generous proportions, with thick legs, aprons and spandrels. Compare, also, a slightly larger huanghuali recessed-leg table illustrated by Robert D. Jacobsen and Nicholas Grindley in Classical Chinese Furniture in theMinneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1999, pp. 122-23, no. 40, where it is dated to the 17th century. The authors note that wider tables of this form were used as painting tables (see lot 2009), and more slender examples, such as the present table, were perhaps used as altar tables placed against a wall.