We may mention in passing that the French furniture-makers of the eighteenth century utilised, in the production of some of their finest commodes, drawer-fronts and panels of genuine Japanese lacquer which must have been manufactured specially for the French market, exhibiting, as they do, shapes quite foreign to anything in use in Japan. It is highly probable that these serpentine and bow-shaped drawer-fronts were sent out to Japan to receive their decoration. In the "Jones Bequest" at the Victoria and Albert Museum, we can see superb examples of such belonging to the period of Louis XV. It is said that Madame Pompadour expended 110,000 livres on Japanese lacquer. Marie Antoinette's collection in the Louvre is considerable; but it is quite certain that the finest examples of the art never left Japan. Mr. Huish, to whose book we have above referred, gives some interesting statistics pointing to the scarcity of fine old lacquer in this country during the early days of trade with the East. In one year during the eighteenth century eleven ships sailed, and, whilst carrying 16,580 pieces of porcelain, they brought only twelve pieces of lac. To-day Old English lacquered furniture is much sought after, and prices are advancing rapidly. The coloured varieties include red, blue, green, violet, and occasionally buff. The red in particular is highly prized. Black lac, which was made in great quantities in every shape of furniture, is still comparatively plentiful. An early eighteenth-century grandfather's clock, which might fetch anything from five to ten pounds if the case were of plain oak, would have a selling value of from ten to twenty pounds if lacquered. Evidence points to the fact that, in the majority of cases, the lacquer was an afterthought. The furniture of the day was turned out, in the ordinary course of trade, quite innocent of lacquer, and afterwards treated by professional japanners--sometimes maltreated by amateurs. Not long since, in our own day, there was a similar craze for covering furniture with enamel paints. Fig. 74 is an interesting china cabinet in black lacquer of William and Mary period, 7 ft. 5 in. high and 5 ft. wide, priced at £30. A first-class modern mahogany or walnut-wood cabinet of the size could scarcely be made for the money, whilst the old lac, apart from its intrinsic charm, has an additional sentimental value as marking a phase in the history of furniture--a phase in decoration. In this cabinet we have also a development in form; it is palpably the product of a period when the rage for collecting porcelain was prevalent, and in the same connection it is no less useful to-day. The modern designer scarcely invents anything more appropriate. It is interesting to note this cabinet as an example of the afterthought in decoration. The owners--Messrs. Story and Triggs Ltd., of Queen Victoria Street, London--have discovered that the lacquer is superimposed on walnut veneer! It tells its own tale.