An encyclopedia of sofas.

Publisher's pictorial boards, pictorial dustjacket. As new. New York, Shooting Star Press, 1996. 4to. 28 x 21,5 cms. 128 pp. Richly illustrated in colour. (Publisher:) "Highly informative and lavishly illustrated, An encyclopedia of sofas is a fascinating volume for everyone from the nascent collector to the experienced connoisseur. Chronicling the development of the sofa from Pharaonic Egypt to late 20th century America and Europe, the book also provides an indepth sociohistorical account, focusing on this surprisingly eclectic form of seat furniture - which has been used at various times throughout the ages for such activities as eating meals, receiving guests, courting ladies, or just plain chatting and relaxing, as we largely know it today. All types of sofas are pictured and described - from the simple Flemish benches made from wooden planks to finely crafted canapés by French ébénistes, from delicate Rococo day-beds to over- stuffed Victorian monstrosities, from rush-seated Arts & Crafts settles to sophisticated modular units of the high-tech 1980s. French, British and American sofas, as well as examples from Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy and other countries, appear in a gamut of guises - settle and settee, chaise longue and chair-back, love seat and the lips of Mae West, tapestry-covered and tassel-edged. An encyclopedia of sofas presents 198 photographs, the vast majority in full color, each with an extensive caption and all arranged chronologically, spanning the years c1000 BC to the present day. For clarification, the text is divided into four sections: the sofa before 1700, from 1700 to 1800, from 1800 to 1900, and the present century, and each carries informative introductory texts".…