THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FURNITURE

Though the emphasis is, quite naturally, on Germany and the historical chronology of furniture, this is a book of far- reaching implications, stemming back to Egypt of the Pharoahs, reaching out to include Assyria, Persia, Greece and Rome, Italy, the Netherlands, France, England, and briefly America and Africa. In fifty pages of introductory text, Dr. Schmitz, one time Director of the Arts and Crafts Museum in Berlin, presents an outline history of furniture. Inevitably superficial, this touches lightly on the interplay of influences affecting design, the ancestry of modern furniture, secular not ecclesiastical, the abiding influences of the classic designs, the ""borrowing"" on the part or the craftsmen of Great Britain from the Italian and Flemish designers, and from France. Much of the illustrative material indicates how both historically and imitatively data is taken from drawings and paintings, from has reliefs, from sculpture on tombs, etc. The text with the accompanying 320 pages of photographs widens the horizon of general knowledge, suggests something of the manners and morals and way of life, as Dr. Schmitz starts with the craftsmanship of antiquity, and comes on down to the Empire and Biedermeier period, and the contributions- briefly- of the Near and Far East. A very useful reference book for decorators, designers, theatrical producers, etc. One could wish for an index and a bibliography, but even as it stands it is worth the money.