Product Description: Instilling a cultivated taste for all authentically creative furniture! From ancient Greece and Rome, through medieval times, and up to the present day, domestic furniture has been an integral part of civilization, and its study reveals much about our history and culture. This classic guide to furniture styles discusses the development of domestic furniture in Europe, America, and China, detailing the great periods of French and English furniture from the Renaissance through the Empire and Regency periods. Furniture from every age is represented in over 600 photographs of pieces from major collections throughout the world. The book's highly readable style and extensive coverage make it a valuable resource for interior designers.
Found book arrangement difficult A College textbook or reference-type book. Comprehensive--fine print. Seemed a good read, but I didn't like the set-up. All text was in the front, and the examples and photos were grouped in the back. One would need to flip back and forth to view examples of the subject matter. Didn't work for me.
This is the only reason I gave it a low rating, and returned the book.
The Complete Guide to Furniture Styles As a college educator in the history of architecture, furniture and the decorative arts I think the Boger is a very good overall text both to students and interested others. Information on furnitre prior to Gothic is the weakest, and would reccomend other texts to satisfy those needs. Photographic reproduction quality in some instances barely passable.
Great book for a history of furniture styles! I have to disagree with the previous reviewer--this book is FILLED with pictures in the back half of the book. The pictures are disappointingly all black and white, but it keeps the cost down I suppose. This is the best resource for visual identification of styles from Egyptian through Twentieth Century that I have seen, and I have seen quite a lot of them. The front half of the book is very detailed information about each of the styles as well as specific pieces within each style. It's not something you can read from cover to cover, as the details would quickly overcome you. But it is a wonderful reference book for anyone who wants to be able to look up a particular style, read about it, and look at many pictures to visually understand general characteristics of the style.
Good written description of history and style THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO FURNITURE STYLES is a well written guide to the history of different periods of furniture. It states the history of the period and crucial pieces with a description of the piece. There are very few pictures, so if you are looking for a guide to train your eye to note characteristics of period pieces, this will not help you. If you are looking for a written description of the pieces, this book is for you.