ILLUSTRATED BOOKS.
CHINESE FURNITURE.* A FEW pages of introduction and some fifty plates constitute Mr. Herbert Cescinsky's admirable book on Chinese cabinet work, but the quality of both the text and the illus- trations is such that we close the book with a satisfaction that makes us wish for yet more. Indeed the book—the first of its kind—is admittedly something of a stop-gap pending the publication of a more comprehensive study that is provisionally promised to us. Certainly in the matter of furniture we have a way of preferring that which is familiar to us, and unless we have been specially initiated by travel in the East or close study in the museums, French and English pieces "In the. Chinese Taste" may give us more direct pleasure than the authentic and exquisite exotics depicted in Mr. Cescinsky's pages.
We are so used to Chinese or Japanese lacquer chests on gilt European stands that they almost seem to need some such " Westernizing " foundation to look quite at ease in an English setting, or for the heavy-footed, serge-clad Englishman to feel quite comfortable in their delicate alien presence. However, regarded in the abstract purely as objects of vertu and not as part of our house furniture, they deserve the homage that is due to consummate craftsmanship of any kind. Whilst conceding the amazing skill and patience—almost inconceivable save in an Oriental —that have gone to their making, we still reserve our liberty to dislike the fretted elaboration of, for instance, the highly. prized carved cinnabar lacquer Imperial throne of Chien- Lung now at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The author no doubt truly says that in this piece "the highest limit of excellence was reached," and that "for absolute per- fection of workmanship and intricacy of ornament this throne is almost incomparable." We are quite willing to grant all this, and we merely affirm that to our eye, with its different experience and different shape, some of the simpler screens and cabinets are infinitely more attractive. Very possibly a Chinaman might find more pleasure in the sight of one of the simplified though beautiful Underground posters than in some treasured Old Master in our National Gallery, and, by his own standards, if not absolutely, he might well be right. Even if he is not, we must grant him what we claim for ourselves—the right to be wrong.
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