Reproduction of a 13th century Chinese Psalter table
In the early part of the 1900's an American family in China, the Johnson's, became enamored with Chinese furniture and set about making exact measurements of all the different pieces they found. For this table I used the Johnson drawings. It was certainly a major piece of work for me as the legs are all assembled with the triple miter joint and must be cut using a fine tenon saw and several different chisels. It took me a week to cut and fit all the miter joints, but I must say a pleasurable week. The original piece was built out of Wang Wa Lui which was extinct by the 16th century. It had a beautiful honey glow to it. I decided to use Cocobola to give my piece a glow as well. Since the whole piece is solid lumber it has considerable weight.Somehow the solidness, choice of wood and design lend this piece a true sense of elegance and certainly speaks well of the early Chinese furniture makers. They did not have the sophisticated hand planes that we now have and from what I have read they used broken pieces of glass to scrape the lumber to a highly polished finish.
Fine Custom Furniture & Specialty Wall Units Area Served: Philadelphia & The greater Tri-State Region  HOME |
|
