Measured drawings of fine old furniture

The enormous number of the Nation's Treasures stored in the national museums is possibly one of the reasons why they are so little known. Their very number makes a thorough acquaintance with them a wellnigh impossible task. We have with infinite care formed one of the largest and finest collections which the world possesses, but, judging from the people met with in the galleries, it is better known to American and Continental tourists than to the people of this country.

There was some excuse for this lack of appreciation until the wonderful collection was properly housed, but now, with ample floor-space in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the various pieces can be seen in the greatest comfort. These collections were formed at great cost in order to raise the standard of public taste, and constitute a storehouse of reference in which the materials, methods of workmanship, and the styles of the past could be studied. To a limited extent they fulfil their purpose, and on student days numbers of talented young designers may be seen studying the models made by the masters of other times. The treasures of the nation should have an educative value, not only for the few but for the nation as a whole, otherwise craftsmen who are intent on doing the best work suffer, not from a lack of knowledge, but from a lack of patronage and appreciation.

The cry of the craftsmen of the twentieth century is, "We can make beautiful things, but the public is not sufficiently educated to appreciate them, and we are forced by competition to cater for uneducated tastes."

It is with the idea of interesting a far wider circle in the standards of beauty which the nation has bought and paid for, and of which it knows so little, that we publish what is, after all, merely an elaborate catalogue of beautiful old furniture which every one has a right to closely examine for himself - a right which is unfortunately exercised by so few. By the irony of things and the inexorable character of time and space, it is often those who most desire to study in the nation's treasure-house who are debarred the privilege. To those so circumstanced the plates in this book will prove of the greatest interest. Many will, on perusing them, get a first sight of beautiful things which have been carefully preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum for the pleasure and instruction of each individual citizen.

From an economic point of view, to educate the producing units of a nation and leave the great body of the public without appreciation of beauty is to breed despair in those who know what is right and indifference in those who do not. It is only necessary to visit the workshops of this country to find hundreds of men engaged in work which they themselves know to be bad, but if remonstrated with they say, "This is what the public wants." We admit the difficulty of raising the general standard of taste, but because the task is so heavy there is all the more reason to tackle it manfully, the subject being not only one of individual culture but of wide economic importance.

The names of the great cabinet-makers have been used by unscrupulous makers as mere catch-words. Their reputations have been "defamed by every charlatan and soiled with all ignoble use." The public, therefore, wants some work of reference in order that it may be able to judge what is and what is not permissible in certain styles. There is one infallible standard which has been formed at an immense cost, and which is by no means appreciated at its true worth, and in publishing drawings of these historic pieces of furniture we shall be amply rewarded if they serve the useful purpose of arousing widespread interest in the Nation's Treasures.