ich must be to the credit of
the Jacobean period.

* * * * *

In the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to preserve, as far as
possible, a certain continuity in the history of the subject matter of
this work from the earliest times until after the Renaissance had been
generally adopted in Europe. In this endeavour a greater amount of
attention has been bestowed upon the furniture of a comparatively short
period of English history than upon that of other countries, but it is
hoped that this fault will be forgiven by English readers.

It has now become necessary to interrupt this plan, and before returning
to the consideration of European design and work, to devote a short
chapter to those branches of the Industrial Arts connected with furniture
which flourished in China and Japan, in India, Persia, and Arabia, at a
time anterior and subsequent to the Renaissance period in Europe.

Chapter V.

The Furniture of Eastern Countries.

CHINESE FURNITURE: Probable source of artistic taste--Sir William
Chambers quoted--Racinet's "Le Costume Historique"--Dutch
influence--The South Kensington and the Duke of Edinburgh
Collections--Processes of making Lacquer--Screens in the Kensington
Museum. JAPANESE FURNITURE: Early History--Sir Rutherford Alcock and
Lord Elgin--The Collection of the Shogun--Famous Collections--Action of
the present Government of Japan--Special characteristics. INDIAN
FURNITURE: Early European influence--Furniture of the Moguls--Racinet's
Work--Bombay Furniture--Ivory Chairs and Table--Specimens in the India
Museum. PERSIAN WOODWORK: Collection of Objets d'Art formed by General
Murdoch Smith, R.E.--Industrial Arts of the Persians--Arab
influence--South Kensington Specimens. SARACENIC WOODWORK: Oriental
customs--Specimens in the South Kensington Museum of Arab Work--M.
d'Aveune's Work.

Chinese and Japanese Furniture.

[Illustration]

We have been unable to discover when the Chinese first began to use State
or domestic furniture. Whether, like the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians,
there was an early civilization which included the arts of joining,
carving, and upholstering, we do not know; most probably there was; and
from the plaster casts which one sees in our Indian Museum, of the
ornamental stone gateways of Sanchi Tope, Bhopal in Central India, it
would appear that in the early part of our Christian era,