AN IMPORTANT AND EXCEPTIONALLY RARE IMPERIAL TIANQI AND QIANGJIN LACQUER RECTANGULAR TABLE, PINGTOU'ANChongzhen incised eight-character mark, cyclically dated to the Gengchen year, corresponding to 1640 and of the period The large table intricately incised and coloured in varying shades of red, green and burnt amber shading to black, all picked out with traces of gold filling the incisions, the long rectangular top with a pair of confronted sinuous five-clawed dragons riding the heavens above crashing waves, contesting a treasure vase supported on a cluster of cruciform clouds, issuing precious jewels, 'Auspicious Emblems' and Wan symbols fluctuating above a pair of flaming pearls amidst vaporous clouds, all on a dense diaper ground, the curving edge, apron, spandrels and double stretchers with further clusters of cruciform clouds, the straight legs with floral scrolls. 81.9cm (32 2/8in) high x 189.5cm (74 1/2in) wide x 47.5cm (18 1/2in) deep. 明崇禎，一六四〇年 填漆戧金龍紋平頭案 「大明崇禎庚辰年製」楷書刻款 Provenance: Sotheby's New York, 19 March 2013, lot 491 來源：蘇富比紐約，2013年3月19日，拍品491 Impressive in size and lavishly decorated with polychrome qiangjin and tianqi lacquer designs, the present table displays a remarkable degree of labour, which together with the presence of five-clawed dragons conveying an extraordinary sense of dynamism and power, demonstrates it was made for use in the Imperial Court. It is extremely rare to find lacquer pieces with a Chongzhen reign mark and of the period. The present lot is even rarer not just for the Imperial reign mark, but the unusualbination of two imposing five-clawed dragons with Buddhist symbols. A similar depiction of dragons displaying a spotted mane,bined with elaborate Buddhist iconography such as on the present example, is on a Chongzhen-marked qiangjin lacquer Luohan bed luohanchuang 羅漢床 decorated with clouds and dragons, in the Qing Court Collection, Beijing, illustrated in Theplete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Furniture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (I) , Shanghai, 2002, pl.8. A further rare example of Chongzhen-marked furniture pieces is an Imperial tianqi and qiangjin lacquer incense stand, illustrated by Lee Yu-kuan, Oriental Lacquer Art , Tokyo, 1972, p.323; and another tianqi and qiangjin lacquer incense stand, similarly inscribed and dated as the one mentioned above, formerly in the Kaisendo Museum, which was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 31 May 2017, lot 3227. Each of these pieces is a rare extant example of the lavish Imperial setting during the late Ming period. Polychrome lacquer became popular in the late Ming dynasty, either brush painted or gold-engraved and coloured in the more onerous qianjin and tianqi technique as displayed on the present table. The qiangjin (incised lines filled with gold) technique was developed as early as the Warring Sates period. The history of tianqi however, a su