A reference source for those with an interest in period styles of furniture and decoration. It comprises a survey of domestic interiors portrayed in art from the ancient world to the late 19th century. It features around 400 paintings and watercolours from all over Europe, Russia and America that record rooms of all periods and their contents.

Introduction • Illustrations and Commentary: Greek and Roman Furnishings; The Medieval House; Late Medieval Interiors; Late Gothic Interiors; 15th-Century Italian Interiors; Interiors in the Paintings of Vittore Carpaccio; Interiors in Florentine Renaissance Painting; The Scholar’s Cell; 16th-Century Interiors in the Engravings of van der Straet; 17th-Century Flemish Interiors in the Paintings of Frans Franken; Dutch Interiors in 17th-Century Emblem Books; Opulent Flemish Interiors in the Paintings of van Bassen; Louis XIII Inter ior s in the Eng ravings of Abraham Bosse; Inter ior s in 17th-Centur y Dutc h Painting; Wunderkammer n and Patrician Galleries; English Interiors of the 18th Century; Gothic Taste in 18th-Century England; Louis XV Interiors: Innovations in Furniture and the Distribution of Apartments; The Classical Influence and the Development of the Louis XVI Style; An Interest in Humble Interiors and Precious Furniture; Early Neoclassical Interiors; Interiors by Percier and Fontaine: The Inspiration of Herculaneum; The Receuil of Percier and Fontaine: The ‘Bible of Empire Style’; Archaeological Trends in England: Interiors and Furniture by Thomas Hope; Empire Interiors; Watercolor Interiors by Garnerey; Empire Interiors in Naples; From Empire to Biedermeier; The Timelessness of Humble Interiors; The Biedermeier Stimmung in the Paintings of Georg Friedrich Kersting; Interior Views as Portraits of Famous Persons; The Bonapartes in Exile – The Round Table of Queen Hortense; Early 19th-century Florentine Interiors; Biedermeier Interiors of the Bourbons in Naples; Biedermeier Interiors at the Court of Marie-Louise at Parma; Bourgeois Interiors and the Sense of Intimacy; 19th-century kitchens; American and English Interiors of the early 19th century; Russian Interiors, 1820s–1850s; Danish Interiors of c.1830; Cafés, Osterie and Gathering Places; Artists’ Studios; The Chigi Album; Dutch Interiors, 1830–1840; The Album of Queen Sophia of Holland; Innovations: The Pouf; Character of the Furnishing–Character of the Owner; Children and Flowers; Around the Table; The World Outside; Influence of the Great Exhibition of 1851; Residences of Foreigners in Italy; Watercolour Interiors by Fernand Pelez; Exaltation of the Stuffed Chair; The Style Louis XVI–Impératrice; The Château de Ferrières of the Baron de Rothschild; The Twilight of the Biedermeier Spirit; The Styleless Interior; The Clutter of Bric-a-Brac and Junk: The Makart-Bukett; The Japanese Vogue and the Ecelecticism of the 19th Century; The Intimism of Interiors by Vuillard; Art Nouveau Interiors