By comparing these sections in one chapter after another it may be seen when, approximately, our different household articles came into use and under what forms they first appeared. We shall learn, for instance, that our modern sideboard has several lines of ancestry. On one side, it is partly descended from the dresser of Stuart and Queen Anne days and partly from the Jacobean cupboard; on the other, its lineage can be traced from the seventeenth century side or serving table, which sometimes had drawers and sometimes did not, through the "sideboard table" of the Chippendale period, an article wholly without drawers, down to the creations of Shearer, Hepplewhite and Sheraton in the latter part of the eighteenth century when drawers, cupboards and sundry other appliances of convenience were developed. To the dresser and court-cupboard side of its parentage, is unquestionably due the appallingly hideous superstructure of woodwork and mirrors with which the modern sideboard is so often unhappily crowned, an ill-conceived device that makes it look for all the world like a detached section of a barroom or barber shop.

After the list of articles to be dealt with, comes a section on contour. Too much stress cannot be laid on the supreme importance of carefully studying the shape of every object considered. By comparing the contour of an article of one date with the contour of a similar article of another date, and so on, we shall be able to trace the process of evolution through all its stages. At the same time we shall receive an object lesson of inestimable service in aiding us to acquire the faculty of quick and unerring judgment. By close attention to contour we also learn the invaluable habit of systematic observation, keeping a keen eye open for little details that come to have more and more meaning for us the more we heed them.

For the student and lover of old furniture or for the collector of antiques there is no asset more useful than a trained eye, quick to detect and remember the slightest variation of line or proportion. Such practise of critical scrutiny incalculably benefits the sense of appreciation and furthermore stands one in good stead in a thousand other ways. It is not too much to say that anyone who thoroughly knows the contour of furniture in its successive periods, and has conscientiously followed the steps of its evolution, has learned the most important part of the whole subject and gained a grasp and mastery of which no expert need feel ashamed.

To the practised observer of contour, the Flemish scroll legs of late Carolean chairs, the cup-turned legs of William and Mary highboys and tables or the bun feet of their cabinets, the broken swan-neck pediments and cabriole legs of Queen Anne's reign, the bombe fronts of Chippendale's French work, the serpentine fronts or the tapered legs and spade feet of Hepplewhite's dainty productions, all mean infinitely more than they do to one who is not in the habit of observing. An acquaintance with these details will give the student or collector of old furniture an assurance and confidence in his own judgment that he may largely rely upon to guide him in his quest.

Next in order after a brief general review of contour comes a detailed discussion of the individual articles of furniture and their variant forms, with special contour analysis, and then follows a subject of fascinating interest. From oak to satinwood, we can discern how the material affected the style of furniture and the manner of its decoration. We can see why carving went out and marqueterie and veneer came in. We can understand the forms of Queen Anne or Chippendale chairs when we know the properties of the woods they were made of. We can perceive the development of certain types of chairs and settees, made possible by the rich upholstery stuffs that came into fashion late in the seventeenth century, and, furthermore, we learn that those gorgeous and unsurpassed fabrics came to be made in England because Huguenot textile weavers, dissatisfied with conditions at home, settled at Spitalfields about 1670 and received a great addition in numbers and skill, a few years later, when their co-religionists were driven out of France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Immediately after materials, decorative processes are considered. Under this heading, in one chapter or another, come carving, veneering, inlay, marqueterie, painting, gilding, lacquer, and several sorts of turning. The reader's interest is aroused when he discovers that there were three kinds of carving used in the Jacobean period and that sometimes all of them were employed to embellish the same piece of cabinet work. The introduction of veneer and the different kinds that won favour furnish entertaining material. Inlay and mar-queterie, as decorative processes, are of course closely linked together and were largely used in conjunction. We find that different modes of applying them were in vogue at different stages in the progress of the art and that in consequence the character of design was materially affected. The intimate inter-relation between process and the character of design is a fascinating thing to watch, especially when we can note the progressive stages of development from century to century. The extensive use made of painting and gilding in the adornment of English furniture, from early times right down to our own day, almost without a break, will doubtless come as a surprise to some readers.

As convenient decorative resources, however, our forbears frequently availed themselves of both and we are now just beginning to wake up again to the possibilities open to us in either field.

A view of turning and the sources whence the several kinds came will reveal to us more than one phase of international trade relations, but none of the decorative processes presents such varied and engaging aspects as lacquer. Brought in small quantities from the Orient, even as early as Tudor times, it elicited admiration and became increasingly popular as more and more arrived from year to year. Somewhat before the closing years of the seventeenth century it had come to be imitated with no mean degree of success by English craftsmen and the enthusiasm for lacquered furniture became one of the dominating mobiliary influences of the era. Not only did lacquered furniture retain its vogue undiminished during a large part of the eighteenth century, but it seems also to have created a widespread taste for Oriental wares and Oriental designs that cropped out persistently from time to time under one form or another with periodic recrudescence. Sir William Chambers came under the spell of Chinese influence and in turn gave it a great impetus by his work and his published designs. Chippendale and others threw themselves eagerly and not without a measure of success into a Chinese expression in their chair and cabinet making.

Sheraton betrayed signs of the same tendency and now in our own day we are having a Chinese revival which has much to commend it apart from the perennial glamour of the far East.

In examining the types of decoration, so closely allied to the decorative processes, we name those most usually met with and note their recurrence under slightly varied forms. There is a peculiar fascination in following the progress of these types of decorative enrichment for furniture from the vermilion, chocolate or vivid green colouring in the Gothic fretwork of a fourteenth century chest or aumbry down through the mixed Renaissance and mediaeval motifs of Jacobean days, the Chinese vagaries of Thomas Johnson, the graceful Pompeian designs employed by the Brothers Adam, the dainty devices used by Hepplewhite and Sheraton to surround Angelica Kauffmann's panels, all the way to the robust pineapples, honeysuckles, and cornucopias of the late Empire fashion.

Passing from types of decoration we come next to structure and get a glimpse of the methods employed in each period, from the staunch house-building joinery of the seventeenth century to the dexterous shaping of bombe and serpentine fronts, or the neat adjustment of tambour work in the masterpieces of cabinet making produced in the eighteenth.

Following structure, comes a section in each chapter on mounts, an important subject too frequently slighted. If we would know fully the furniture of each period and be able to tell whether or not it has its original mounts or if we would be able to judge of the accuracy of a reproduction, it is necessary for us to know whether a chest or cupboard ought to have knobs, pear drop or bail handles, whether the plates should be plain, chased or perforated and of what sort the scutcheons should be. The last section is devoted to finish, that is to say, to the various kinds of varnishes and wood preservatives that it has been customary to apply in the different periods.

It must be remembered that for the most part American furniture was the same as English, either by importation or the following out of the current styles of the parent country by American workmen. There were, however, in addition to these styles, certain changes or developments that are strictly American, and these are fully treated in two chapters.

This volume will be found to embrace furniture both of plain and elaborate types, so as to be a competent guide to either, for an inspection of the antique shops in any of our large cities will show a wonderful array of every variety of period furniture, plain and ornate. Dealers have imported many excellent original pieces and great numbers of admirable reproductions are being made, so that anyone wishing to know the ground must be equipped to judge of more than American furniture of Colonial and post-Colonial days. The field of period furniture is indeed broad, but it is reasonable, however, to conclude that by working from well established data, data that we have endeavoured to emphasise and codify in the following pages, trustworthy identifications may be reached with scarcely an exception.