Tranquil Zenlike Table

We're Bond & Bowery, a website with the most diverse selection of antiques, design, and fine art in cyberspace. We highlight quality pieces without the clutter of competing ads and excessive editorial content. B & B understands the importance of a valuable acquisition and its contribution to home decoration.

Your B & B Host: I'm George Evans, and I've spent the last 20 years importing and exporting antiques and fine design pieces from Europe. I'm a New York City dealer and I have two showrooms in Lambertville, New Jersey.

This week we're featuring an exotic Antique Japanese Lotus Leaf Occasional Tray Table. 

This Japanese lotus leaf table shines with its carved burlwood. The execution is so natural and realistic that we would call it sculptural tromp-l'oeil. It's rare to find a combination of such fine wood quality and skilled carving technique coming together to produce such an exceptional end product.

This table has a unique blend desirable for collectors, merging both beautiful form and high function. As a collectible, we believe it would appeal to a lover of Japanese antiques and anyone who can just appreciate it for its uniqueness and multiple uses as a conventional table and as a piece of home sculpture.

This pieces comes to us from the Bond and Bowery antiques dealer Hudsons Estate Gallery, an appointment-only dealer in Oakland, California. We know that the tabletop is intricately handcarved from one solid piece of wood and then fixed onto a tripod base. A fine woodworker no doubt fashioned the top, showing off the exquisite curly grain of the lotus leaf.

The tray top is definitely of the Meiji period (1868-1912). The base was probably made later, but is of the same color and adds versatility to the tray's presentation.

This piece would be great anywhere in the home. There's the obvious, the living room or bedroom or using the table as a finishing touch in the home library, office, or den. Being 25” wide by 16” deep and 25” high, it could easily accommodate a small single lamp to add light to a room joined with a display of some small objets d’art. This is a piece that one would not want to hide, but make sure its shared with everyone! 

Visit Bond & Bowery for the item detail page on this wonderful table.

And for a discussion about some other great pieces, please see my By George! interview with Design2Share.