“The bedroom is divided from the saloon by a partition of folding doors, which, when the weather is hot, are in the night thrown open to admit the air.  It is very small, and contains no other furniture than the bed, and some varnished chests in which they keep their apparel.  The beds are very magnificent; the bedsteads are made much like ours in Europe—­of rosewood, carved, or lacquered work:  the curtains are of taffeta or gauze, sometimes flowered with gold, and commonly either blue or purple.  About the top a slip of white satin, a foot in breadth, runs all round, on which are painted, in panels, different figures—­flower pieces, landscapes, and conversation pieces, interspersed with moral sentences and fables written in Indian ink and vermilion.”

From old paintings and engravings which date from about the fourteenth or fifteenth century one gathers an idea of such furniture as existed in China and Japan in earlier times.  In one of these, which is reproduced in Racinet’s “Le Costume Historique,” there is a Chinese princess reclining on a sofa which has a frame of black wood visible, and slightly ornamented; it is upholstered with rich embroidery, for which these artistic people seem to have been famous from a very early period.  A servant stands by her side to hand her the pipe of opium with which the monotony of the day was varied—­one arm rests on a small wooden table or stand which is placed on the sofa, and which holds a flower vase and a pipe stand.

On another old painting two figures are seated on mats playing a game which resembles draughts, the pieces being moved about on a little table with black and white squares like a modern chessboard, with shaped feet to raise it a convenient height for the players:  on the floor stand cups of tea ready to hand.  Such pictures are generally ascribed to the fifteenth century, the period of the great Ming dynasty, which appears to have been the time of an improved culture and taste in China.

From this time and a century later (the sixteenth) also date those beautiful cabinets of lacquered wood enriched with ivory, mother of pearl, with silver and even with gold, which have been brought to England occasionally; but genuine specimens of this, and of the seventeenth century, are very scarce and extremely valuable.

The older Chinese furniture which one sees generally in Europe dates from the eighteenth century, and was made to order and imported by the Dutch; this explains the curious combination to be found of Oriental and European designs; thus, there are screens with views of Amsterdam and other cities copied from paintings sent out for the purpose, while the frames of the panels are of carved rosewood of the fretted bamboo pattern characteristic of the Chinese.  Elaborate bedsteads, tables and cabinets were also made, with panels of ash stained a dark color and ornamented with hunting scenes, in which the men and horses are of ivory, or sometimes with ivory faces and limbs, the clothes being chiefly in a brown colored wood.