Each picture in this book could stand alone as a work of art - a testament to Sweden's innate sense of style. Period by period, house by house, breathtaking images and elegantly authoritative text focus on those special features of the traditional Swedish room that have made it one of the major influences on decorating today. Every room is inviting, whether it is a royal guest room, an artistocratic boudoir, or a farmer's kitchen. Every detail is enchanting, from the simple checks and stripes of the fabrics to the way they adorn window frames and form bed canopies, from the elegant outlines of a Gustavian chair to the gleaming titles of the ceramic stoves. The pale distressed colours and light-suffused interiors of the manor houses contrast with the rich claret red wooden exteriors and glowing, ingenuous wall paintings of the farmhouses. The authors trace the development of this quintessentially Swedish style from its antecedents in the seventeenth century through its heyday in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to its followers today. The photographs include detailed close-ups with explanatory captions, so that The Swedish Room is both a source of original, practical decorative ideas as well as an irresistible voyage of discovery through some of the world's most appealing interiors.