[Illustration: Carved Oak Seat, With moveabls Backrest, in front of
Fireplace. Period: Late XV. Century. French.]

We have now arrived at a period in the history of furniture which is
confused, and difficult to arrange and classify. From the end of the
fourteenth century to the Renaissance is a time of transition, and
specimens may be easily mistaken as being of an earlier or later date than
they really are. M. Jacquemart notices this "gap," though he fixes its
duration from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, and he quotes as an
instance of the indecision which characterised this interval, that workers
in furniture were described in different terms; the words coffer maker,
carpenter, and huchier (trunk-maker) frequently occurring to describe the
same class of artisan.

It is only later that the word "menuisier," or joiner, appears, and we
must enter upon the period of the Renaissance before we find the term
"cabinet maker," and later still, after the end of the seventeenth
century, we have such masters of their craft as Riesener described as
"ebenistes," the word being derived from ebony, which, with other eastern
woods, came into use after the Dutch settlement in Ceylon. Jacquemart also
notices the fact that as early as 1360 we have record of a specialist,
"Jehan Petrot," as a "chessboard maker."


[Illustration: Interior of An Apothecary's Shop. Late XIV. or Early XV.
Century. Flemish. (_From an Old Painting._)]

[Illustration: Court of the Ladies of Queen Anne of Brittany. (_From a
Miniature in the Library of St. Petersburg_) Representing the Queen
weeping on account of her Husband's absence during the Italian War.