30 MARCH 1907, Page 25

Dutch and Flemish Furniture. By Esther Singleton. (Hodder and Stoughton.

42s. net.)—There are many interesting things in this volume. To the connoisseur and collector it appeals by its descriptions and delineations of various articles which are included under the term " f urniture." The general reader will be mostly. attracted by the catalogues and the narratives of individual owners, of what they possessed and eared for. There ' is' the story, for instance, of Margaret of Austria, who was Regent of the Netherlands in the early part of the sixteenth century. Luckily she drew up a catalogue of her paintings, curios, &c., and a very remarkable document it is. The articles themselves have gone, but they still exist in imagination, thanks to her care for posterity, if, indeed, this was her motive. Thus, in the chapter on " Porcelain " we hear of the possessions of a quite obscure person, Christina de /Udder, in 1699. The porcelain is valued at about three thousand florins.