Soon after this generous bequest was placed in the South Kensington Museum, for the benefit of the public, a leading article appeared in the _Times_, from which the following extract will very appropriately conclude this chapter:--"As the visitor passes by the cases where these curious objects are displayed, he asks himself what is to be said on behalf of the art of which they are such notable examples. Tables, chairs, commodes, secretaires, wardrobes, porcelain vases, marble statuettes, they represent in a singularly complete way the mind and the work of the _ancien régime_. Like Eisen's vignettes, or the _contes_ of innumerable story-tellers, they bring back to us the grace, the luxury, the prettiness, the frivolity of that Court which believed itself, till the rude awakening came, to contain all that was precious in the life of France. A piece of furniture like the little Sêvres-inlaid writing table of Marie Antoinette is, to employ a figure of Balzac's, a document which reveals as much to the social historian as the skeleton of an ichthyosaurus reveals to the palæontologist. It sums up an epoch. A whole world can be inferred from it. Pretty, elegant, irrational, and entirely useless, this exquisite and costly toy might stand as a symbol for the life which the Revolution swept away." [Illustration: HARPSICHORD, from the Permanent Collection belonging to South Kensington Museum. DATE ABOUT 1750. _See Appendix, p. 266._] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 12: The present decorations of the Palace of Versailles were carried out about 1830, under Louis Phillipe. "Versailles Galeries Historiques," par C. Gavard, is a work of 13 vols. devoted to the illustration of the pictures, portraits, statues, busts, and various decorative contents of the Palace.] [Footnote 13: For description of method of gilding the mounts of furniture, see Appendix.] [Footnote 14: NOTE.--Since the first edition of this book was published in 1892, the value of really fine old French furniture has considerably risen, and the above-named estimate of the auction price of such a suite of furniture as is described would have to be doubled.] [Footnote 15: Watteau, 1684-1721. Lancret, _b._ 1690, _d._ 1743. Boucher, _b._ 1703, _d._ 1770.] CHAPTER VII. Chippendale and his Contemporaries. Chinese Styles--Sir William Chambers--The Brothers Adams' work--Pergolesi, Cipriani, and Angelica Kauffmann--Architects of the time--Wedgwood and Flaxman--Chippendale's Work and his Contemporaries--Chair in the Barbers' Hall--Lock, Shearer, Hepplewhite, Ince, Mayhew, Sheraton--Introduction of Satinwood and Mahogany--Gillows, of Lancaster and London--History of the Sideboard--The Dining Room--Furniture of the time. Soon after the second half of the eighteenth century had set in, during the latter days of the second George, and the early part of his successor's long reign, there is a distinct change in the design of English decorative furniture.