Reprint of rare volume offers detailed review of hardwood furniture from early Shang to late Ming. For collector, craftsman. 161 illustrations.

The international market for antique Chinese furniture is booming, and masterpieces from the Ming and Qing dynasties are now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chinese Furniture is a survey of these collectibles--from the very best hardwood pieces featured to standard softwood specimens still available on the Asian market. This antique furniture book presents an overview of carving styles, wood types, regional variations, class distinctions and restoration techniques. It includes detailed chapters on various types of wooden furniture cover chairs, stools and benches, tables and desks, beds, cabinets and bookshelves, doors and screens and household accessories. With this renewed interest in antique furniture, a forgery market has emerged. Thousands of factories in southern China are churning out brand new or refurbished furniture and passing them off as Chinese antiques. Chinese Furniture unearths these forgeries and serves as an indispensable reference guide for collectors of antique wood furniture.

This book provides an accessible, illustrated introduction to the long history, production techniques and cultural significance of Chinese furniture.

Tansu, the unique cabinetry of Japan, springs from a rich folk-art tradition. This book is lavishly illustrated with 27 full-color plates and over 260 monochrome photographs of spectacular chests and elegant details. It is divided into two parts, the first on history and the second on techniques. It also includes an invaluable guide to purchasing and conserving tansu.

Each chapter of this book examines a different facet of this aesthetic, beginning with its European origins and proceeding to American classics, including California's Mission style. The book highlights the work of such influential designers as Gustav Stickley, L & J.G. Stickley, Charles Voysey, Greene & Greene, George Ohr, Tiffany, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Charles Rohlfs, among others, and features Arts and Crafts standards, such as the Morris chair, the Stickley settle, the Tiffany lamp, and the Fulper bowl, all displayed in a variety of contemporary interiors.

The first English-language translation of the French 18th-century classic text on woodworking.

Shows and describes splicing, oblique, corner, cross, and edge joints used in Japanese wooden construction

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.