The practical cabinet maker and furniture designer's assistant, with essays on history of furniture, taste in design, color and materials, with full explanation of the canons of good taste in furniture .. . sent day. The chairsof the early times might in many cases be readily mis-taken for those now in use among ourselves; whereasthe divans and cushions of modern Egypt, on which thenatives indolently recline, belong to the oriental systemof furniture. In Cairo no chambers are furnished asbed-rooms. The bed, in the day-time, is rolled up andplaced on one side, or in an adjoining closet, which i
The practical cabinet maker and furniture designer's assistant, with essays on history of furniture, taste in design, color and materials, with full explanation of the canons of good taste in furniture .. . sent day. The chairsof the early times might in many cases be readily mis-taken for those now in use among ourselves; whereasthe divans and cushions of modern Egypt, on which thenatives indolently recline, belong to the oriental systemof furniture. In Cairo no chambers are furnished asbed-rooms. The bed, in the day-time, is rolled up andplaced on one side, or in an adjoining closet, which isa sleeping-place in the winter. In summer many per-sons sleep upon the house-tops. The furniture of aroom is comprised pretty nearly by the mat or carpetspread upon the floor, and the divans or cushionedcouches. For meals a round tray is brought in andplaced upon a low stool, and the company sit roundit on the ground. There is no fire-place, the room beingwarmed when necessary by charcoal burning in achafing-dish. Passing from Egypt to China, we find, in treatingof the furniture of a room, as in many other matters,how singularly isolated the Chinese are from the other 34 THE PRACTICAL CABINET MAKER. nations of Asia, and how much more closely they re-semble Europeans. The Chinese are the only Asiatic people who customarily usechairs; they resemble thesolid and heavy chairs infashion during the early partof the 18th century; (see il-lustration of Chinese chair).The seat of the chair has oft-en a cushion, and the backa hanging of scarlet silk orwoolen embroidered withsilk. In the forms of theirFigure 17 furniture the Chinese gen- erally avoid straight and uniform lines; even in theirdoorways, instead of a regular right-angled opening,they often have one presenting the form of a circle,or an oval, or a leaf, or a jar. These fanciful door-ways, however, are only used when there are no doors,the opening being covered with hanging screens of silkor cloth, or with bamboo blinds, like
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectfurnitu, bookyear1910
