atures,
showing a definite _new_ type, and, later, when the elation of success
has worn off, yielding to various foreign influences. By way of
example, note the Chinese decoration on some of the painted furniture
of the Louis XVI type, the Dutch influence on Chippendale in line, and
the Egyptian on Empire.

One fascinating way of becoming familiar with history, is to delve
into the origin and development of periods in furniture. The story of
Napoleon is recorded in the unpretentious Directoire, the ornate
Empire of Fontainebleau, while the conversion of round columns into
obelisk-like pilasters surmounted by heads, the bronze and gilded-wood
ornaments in the form of the Sphynx, are frank souvenirs of Egypt.

Every period, whether ascribed to England, France, Italy or Holland,
has found expression in all adjacent countries. An Italian Louis XVI
chair, mirror or applique is frequently sold in Paris or London as
French and Empire furniture was "made in Germany." Periods have no
restricted nationality; but nationality often declares itself in
periods. That is to say, lines may be copied; but workmanship is
another thing. Apropos of this take the French Empire furniture,
massive as much of it is, built squarely and solidly to the floor, but
showing most extraordinary grace on account of the amazing delicacy of
intricate designs, done by the greatest French sculptors of the time
and worked out in metal by the trained hands of men who had a special
genius for this art. At no other time, nor in any other country, has
an equal degree of perfection in the fine chiselling of metals so much
as approached the standard attained during the Louis[1] and the Empire
periods. If in your wandering, you happen upon a genuine bit of this
work in silver or ormoulu, buy it. The writer once found in a New
Jersey antique shop, a rare Empire bronze vase, urn-shaped, a specimen
of the very finest kind of this metal engraving. The price asked for
it (in ignorance, of course) was $2.50! The piece would have brought
$40 in Paris. But the quest of the antique is another story.

When one realises the eternal borrowing of one country from another,
the ever-recurring renaissance of past periods and the legitimate and
illegitimate mixing of styles, it is no wonder that the amateur feels
nervously uncertain, or frankly ignorant. Many a professional
decorator hesitates to give a final judgment.

To take one case in point, we glibly speak of "Colonial" f