Large Red Lacquered Coffee Table with Polychrome & Gold Chinoiserie Decoration, France c.1970

A spectacular and exuberant piece of French chinoiserie lacquerwork, this large rectangular coffee table is one of those rare objects that dominate a room through sheer chromatic intensity. The entire surface — top, apron, legs, and stretchers — is lacquered in a brilliant, deeply saturated vermillion red that provides the ground for an all-over decoration of polychrome and gold chinoiserie motifs. Dragons coil and twist across the top surface among swirling clouds and interlaced floral branches; phoenixes and exotic birds inhabit the corner panels of the apron; chrysanthemum heads, peony branches, and leaf scrolls fill every remaining space with a density and exuberance that recalls the finest export lacquerwork of the Qing dynasty, here reinterpreted by a French craftsman with an eye for the theatrical.

The base is constructed in the Chinese manner: four straight legs of square section support the top through a deep apron decorated on all four sides, while an H-shaped stretcher connecting the legs at a low level adds structural rigidity and provides an additional decorative surface for the gold patterning. This classic Chinese furniture form — encountered in altar tables, low tables, and writing tables from the Ming period onward — here finds a thoroughly Western domestic expression without sacrifice of grandeur.

At 100 cm wide, 70 cm deep, and 38 cm in height, the table is generously proportioned and commands whatever interior it occupies. The combination of Chinese structural vocabulary with French lacquerwork technique is one of the great recurring themes of European decorative arts, from the lacquered cabinets of the seventeenth century through the chinoiserie fever of the eighteenth and the twentieth-century revivals championed by designers from Poiret to Jansen.

In excellent condition, the lacquer vivid and intact throughout. A bold and memorable piece for an interior of ambition.