A VERY RARE DALI-INSET HUANGHUALI MELON-FORM STOOL

The present melon-form stool is among six known stools of this design, four of which have been published. Of these four stools, three are inset with wood panels, including the pair illustrated by Robert Jacobsen and Nicholas Grindley in Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1999, pp. 44-5, pl. 5, and the single stool, formerly in the Gustav Ecke Collection, illustrated by Ecke in Chinese Domestic Furniture, Vermont and Tokyo, 1962, p. 141, pl. 112. The present stool is the only published example inset with a marble top.