erhaps the furniture and utensils that are so much a part of our everyday activity escape notice precisely because of their apparent lack of ritual significance.

Yet even the most unadorned, utilitarian objects may express, through decorative elements and overall form, latent values of which the makers and users alike are unaware.

When the products of industrialization became widely distributed and inexpensive in the nineteenth century, the handmade, often home-made, reminders of earlier hardships were usually relegated to barn and shed or discarded.

The preservation of such artifacts in their original condition may, however, reward us today with both greater understanding of the social, historical and psychological values they contain, and an aesthetic pleasure provoked by their integration of period, process and material.

he vigorous lines and perfect balance of this commode en arbalète create an impression of power and controlled tension. The crossbow shaping of the drawer fronts is echoed in the curves of the skirt, which lead the eye both out to the cabriole feet and in to the deeply carved shell that stands like an armorial shield at the central point of the façade. It would be difficult to imagine a piece of furniture more plastic and sculptural in form, more harmonious in its combination of curved lines and reciprocal symmetry.