Chinese Country Antiques: Vernacular Furniture and Accessories, C. 1780-1920

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended and beautifully presented
Review: In Chinese Country Antiques: Vernacular Furniture And Accessories, c. 1780-1920, Andrea and Lynde McCormick successfully collaborate to offer a comprehensive, authoritative, reader friendly survey of antiquarian Chinese furniture. Profusely illustrated with hundreds of full color photographs, there are chapters devoted to provenance, finishes, fakes, cabinets, chairs and stools, tables, and accessories. Of special note are the chapters on fakes, and accessories. A highly recommended and beautifully presented introduction to Chinese antiques for the novice collector or student, Chinese Country Antiques is further enhanced with an informative appendix on "Woods" and a brief bibliography for further, more specialized or detailed study.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: The images are very nice and well photographed, however as a work of scholarship it is flawed. There are a large number of datelines that are so clearly wrong as to question the authors expertise. I won't bore you with a image by image critique but suffice to say that there are better books on the market such as Friends of the House or Kai Yin Lo's book on Vernacular furniture all of which are real works of quality. As for the price guides included in the book, how helpful is it to give a ...[broad] price range... for a piece of furniture without explaining why one will be the lower price the other the more expensive.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: The images are very nice and well photographed, however as a work of scholarship it is flawed. There are a large number of datelines that are so clearly wrong as to question the authors expertise. I won't bore you with a image by image critique but suffice to say that there are better books on the market such as Friends of the House or Kai Yin Lo's book on Vernacular furniture all of which are real works of quality. As for the price guides included in the book, how helpful is it to give a ...[broad] price range... for a piece of furniture without explaining why one will be the lower price the other the more expensive.

Rating:
Summary: Good Pictures, Insufficient Content
Review: With all the fuss about Ming and early Ching Dynasty antiques, I am glad that someone has finally written a book about furniture from the late Ching Dynasty. At face value, it is a very attractive book indeed, with colourful pictures of antique Chinese furniture and accessories. However, those hoping to learn more about antiques from this book will be sorely disappointed. Not much was written about the history behind the antiques, such as the difference in styles during different times in China's history or even differences in styles between regional furniture. This book was written by people who own an antique business, so what you read is rather like what you would hear should you walk into an antique shop and speak to the shopkeepers. The literature covers only the first 29 pages of the book, and save for the last 2 pages where there is a short discussion on the various kinds of wood, the rest of the 176 page book contains page after page of photographs of furniture and accessories, with no further explainatory notes.

Rating:
Summary: Good Pictures, Insufficient Content
Review: With all the fuss about Ming and early Ching Dynasty antiques, I am glad that someone has finally written a book about furniture from the late Ching Dynasty. At face value, it is a very attractive book indeed, with colourful pictures of antique Chinese furniture and accessories. However, those hoping to learn more about antiques from this book will be sorely disappointed. Not much was written about the history behind the antiques, such as the difference in styles during different times in China's history or even differences in styles between regional furniture. This book was written by people who own an antique business, so what you read is rather like what you would hear should you walk into an antique shop and speak to the shopkeepers. The literature covers only the first 29 pages of the book, and save for the last 2 pages where there is a short discussion on the various kinds of wood, the rest of the 176 page book contains page after page of photographs of furniture and accessories, with no further explainatory notes.