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Subject:Weird Inlay Mark on Scroll-Form Stand
Posted By: TKNZ Fri, Oct 25, 2019 IP: 202.124.109.12

Hi All,

I recently picked up 3 scroll form wood stands from an opshop, one of which was inlaid. On the inlaid one, which is about 195 x 88 x 25mm in size, after getting it home and into better light I noticed that there was a very small inlaid mark on the bottom reading either 十二 or 二十 (the lengths of the lines on the 2 were too similar in length for me to differentiate). Does anyone have an idea of what this mark might mean? I wondered if it might be the number of whatever worker made it, or a size for the stand, or some sort of year identifier...

If anyone has any insight I'd be happy to hear it! Likewise, if anyone's keen to see photos of the other two stands (they're quite different in style), let me know and I'll post them.

Thanks,
Thomas.







Subject:Re: Weird Inlay Mark on Scroll-Form Stand
Posted By: Bill H Sat, Oct 26, 2019

As far as I know, this type of inlaid wire work has a long history in China and other countries in Asia. More recently in China and elsewhere, wooden stands and other arts & crafts cottage industries were revived during the recovery period after World War II and the civil war on the Mainland in order to generate cash resources to support national reconstruction.

I've seen a quite a few late 20th century Chinese stands that had inlaid wires like this, quite often in a key fret design called the "Lei fret" by Chinese, after the god of thunder, Lei Gong.

This design on your stand would be called an "arabesque", I believe, like the one seen around the base on this late 19th century Guangxu Period doucai pedestal dish.

Best regards,

Bill H.




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