ETC.

289   QUEEN ANNE POT-HANGER, WITH ORIGINAL GRATE 291   KETTLE TRIVET 291   COUNTRY FIREDOGS AND FIRE-GRATE (EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY) 297   SUSSEX IRON FIREBACKS 301   SUSSEX IRON FIREBACKS AND ORIGINAL WOOD PATTERN 303   GRANDFATHER CLOCK AND WARMING-PANS 307   BRASS DIAL OF THIRTY-HOUR CLOCK 309   CHAPTER XI—Old English Chintzes     OLD TRADE CARD SHOWING CALICO PRINTERS AT
WORK 319   HUGUENOT PRINTED CHINTZ WITH PORTRAITS 319   HAND-PRINTED CHINTZES. QUEEN ANNE PERIOD AND
CHINESE STYLE 323   EXOTIC BIRD AND GOTHIC STYLES (EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY) 327   HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ BY R. JONES (OLD FORD) 331   HEPPLEWHITE PERIOD AND VICTORIAN PERIOD DESIGNS 335   VICTORIAN CHINTZ (IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS.
COBDEN UNWIN) 339

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
NOTE

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The minor collector—The originality of the village cabinet-maker—His freedom from foreign influences—The traditional character of his work—Difficulty to establish dates to cottage and farmhouse furniture—Oak the chief wood employed—Beech, elm, and ash used in lieu of mahogany and satinwood—Village craftsmanship not debased by early Victorian art—Its obliteration in the age of factory-made furniture—The conservation of old farmhouses with their furniture in Sweden and in Denmark—The need for the preservation and exhibition of old cottages and farmhouses in Great Britain.

In regard to launching another volume on the market dealing with old furniture, a word of explanation is desirable, for nowadays of making books there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the collector.

In the present volume attention has been especially given to that class of furniture known as Cottage or Farmhouse. There is no volume dealing with this phase of collecting. Prices for old furniture of the finest quality have gone up by leaps and bounds, and for those not possessed of ample means the collection of superlative styles is at an end. Singularly enough, the most native furniture and that most typically racy of the soil has not hitherto attracted the attention of wealthy collectors. The plutocrats who buy only the finest creations of Chippendale, who have immediate private information when an exquisitely designed Sheraton piece is found, who amass a mighty hoard of gilt Stuart furniture, or who boast of an unrivalled collection of Elizabethan oak, do not touch the minor furniture made during a period of three hundred years for the common people.

The finest classes of English furniture made by skilful craftsmen for wealthy patrons must always be beyond the range of the minor collector. Every year brings keener zest among those interested in furniture of a bygone day, and it is therefore increasingly difficult for persons of taste and judgment who cannot afford high prices to satisfy their longings. It is obvious that specimens of massive appearance finely carved in oak of the Tudor age, or of elegantly turned work in walnut of Jacobean days, must be readily recognised as valuable. Sumptuous furniture tells its own story. It is unlikely nowadays that such wonderful "finds," concerning which imaginative writers are always telling us, will occur again—except on paper. Popular enthusiasm has been awakened, and more often than not the possessor of some mediocre piece of furniture or china attaches a value to it which is absurd. The publication of prices realised at auction has whetted

the cupidity of would-be sellers who convert early nineteenth-century chairs by a nod of the head into "Queen Anne," and who aver with equal veracity that ordinary blue transfer printed ware has "been in the family a hundred years."