This comprehensive study of furniture styles is one of the most useful books in the field to furniture designers, manufacturers, craftsmen, students, antique dealers and collectors. Photographs and measured drawings of the most striking furniture pieces of the 16th, 17th, 18th, and early years of the 19th centuries comprise the major part of the book; accompanying textual material indicates stylistic features and developments, prototypes, kinds of wood used, the function of the piece, and where the original is now located.

The author points out all the distinguishing features of the particular piece and the style of furniture it illustrates: the cabriole leg and the ample proportions of the Queen Anne chair, the gracefulness of line in Hepplewhite furniture, the Dutch influence on the work of the early American colonists, the turned or twisted legs and stretchers of the Cromwellian armchair. Present day designers can see how the great furniture makers of earlier periods combined curved lines with straight ones, gave certain pieces delicacy and grace while others assumed a sturdy, massive strength, used richly ornamented surfaces or left the wood simple and unadorned. Comfort requirements as well as aesthetic considerations changed from period to period. All of these features are discussed in detail in the text and are fully illustrated in the plates.

Selected mainly from collections in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, the objects depicted include chests, tables, chairs, dressing tables, desks, highboys, commodes, couches, etc. Periods and styles include Colonial American, Duncan Phyfe, Windsor,Sheraton, Hepplewhite, Chippendale, Louis XIV, 18th century Dutch, 16th century Italian, etc. The most oustanding feature of the book is the inclusion of measured drawings for each piece of furniture illustrated. Accurate to the nearest 1/16th of an inch, these drawings can be used to construct precise duplicates of antique furniture. There are several drawings for each piece - front, side, and back elevations and often details of individual sections. Also, greatly helpful to the designer and student is an extensive bibliography compiled by Adolf Placzek, librarian at the Columbia Library of Architecture, which provides a list of sources of measured drawings, offering time-saving leads to hundreds of furniture styles in other books.