Desks (“an” in Chinese pinyin) and tables (“zhuo” in Chinese pinyin) are strictly distinguished from each other; tabletop has the same length as the distance between two legs while desktop is longer. This piece of furniture is a typical flat-top desk, but insiders in Beijing call it “yao” (literally means “dish”) table, or “wine table”. The lower edge of the ice-plate beneath the desk panel is in a yang line. The apron panel is mounted through an elongated bridle joint, and the apron panel and apron head are mitered with each other. Therefore, the long apron panel beneath the longer side of the top panel is actually pieced with three planks, two shorter and one longer. Two “slanted shoulder” apron heads are inserted between the three planks, which saves larger pieces of timber while not infringing the whole appearance. Four legs and the side panels are all round sticks, echoing the rounded angles of apron heads, making the whole desk uniform and harmonious. This is a typical piece of Ming furniture, inspired by wooden beam frames in Chinese ancient architecture. In the 1920s, furniture scholars paid very first attention to the design of such simple flat-top desks with succinct lines when they started to study Ming furniture.