tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">189

Dining-room with paneled walls 196 Four post bed owned by Lafayette 197 Modern dining-room 204 Four post bed 205 Reproductions of Adam painted furniture 222 Three-chair Sheraton settee 223 Reproduction of a Sheraton wing-chair 223 Slat-backed chair 223 Group of chairs and pie-crust table 232 Groups of chairs 233 Reproduction of Jacobean buffet 236 Group of mirrors 237 Reproduction of William and Mary settee 240 Adaptation of Georgian ideas to William and Mary dressing table 240 Two Adam chairs 241 Jacobean day-bed 241 Reproductions of Chippendale table and Hepplewhite desk 244 Reproduction of Sheraton chest of drawers 245 Reproduction of William and Mary chest of drawers 245 A modern sun-room 246 Sheraton sofa 247 Hepplewhite chair and nest of tables 247 Chippendale wing-chair 247 Modern paneled living-room 248 Empire bed 248 Hancock desk, and fine old highboy 249

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Preface

To try to write a history of furniture in a fairly short space is almost as hard as the square peg and round hole problem. No matter how one tries, it will not fit. One has to leave out so much of importance, so much of historic and artistic interest, so much of the life of the people that helps to make the subject vivid, and has to take so much for granted, that the task seems almost impossible. In spite of this I shall try to give in the following pages a general but necessarily short review of the field, hoping that it may help those wishing to furnish their homes in some special period style. The average person cannot study all the subject thoroughly, but it certainly adds interest to the problems of one's own home to know something of how the great periods of decoration grew one from another, how the influence of art in one country made itself felt in the next, molding and changing taste and educating the people to a higher sense of beauty.

It is the lack of general knowledge which makes it possible for furniture built on amazingly bad lines to be sold masquerading under the name of some great period. The customer soon becomes bewildered, and, unless he has a decided taste of his own, is apt to get something which will prove a white elephant on his hands. One must have some standard of comparison, and the best and simplest way is to study the great work of the past. To study its rise and climax rather than the decline; to know the laws of its perfection so that one can recognize the exaggeration which leads to degeneracy. This ebb and flow is most interesting: the feeling the way at the beginning, ever growing surer and surer until the high level of perfection is reached; and then the desire to "gild the lily" leading to over-ornamentation, and so to decline.