Now is a unique time in the history of Tibetan furniture, and this is the only comprehensive book on the subject. Tibetans value their painted furniture highly, but their reverence of antiquities for their own sake is not particularly strong. As a result, antique Tibetan furniture is more highly valued outside Tibet than it is within, and it is becoming increasingly popular among Western collectors.<BR>Contacts with peoples all over Asia can be traced in the designs found on Tibetan furniture, recording a rich history of cultural and trading exchange. In recent centuries, the dominant artistic and cultural force has been China. Yet despite this influence, Tibetan artisans rarely copied designs precisely, rather they adapted and modified the motifs and the decorative style they saw to suit their own ends and to reflect their Tantric Buddhist outlook, so that Tibetan furniture cannot be mistaken or confused with work from other cultures.<BR>Attentive readers will learn to: identify the main types of Tibetan furniture; appreciate their origin and their uses; identify and understand the most common designs; judge the quality of pieces; and derive increased pleasure from Tibetan furniture they have bought.