THE HOUSE AND ITS EQUIPMENT 



89. OF EBONY AND SATINWOOD. 



The walnut cabinet designed by Professor Lethaby 

 and illustrated in Fig. 92 is probably the most impor 

 tant piece of furniture illustrated in this chapter. The 

 illustration can only show its shape, and all the beauty 

 of surface and graining of wood is lost. But it stands 

 as an exemplar of the right direction for furniture- 

 designers to take if they would found a school and 

 leave behind them household equipment that may 

 afterwards be recognised as twentieth century, and as 

 such bear comparison with that of the preceding 

 centuries. At a time when there is hardly a peasant 

 left in England, it is not logical to design furniture for 

 him ; and to adapt it for the use of the more sophisti 

 cated is but to re 

 create the senti- 



m e n t of poor 



Marie Antoinette s 



hamlet at t h e 



Petit Trianon ; it 



was playing at 



being a peasant, 



and its o n 1 y 



interest remains 



in the personality 



of the player. The 



hamlet is poor stuff architecturally and by way of a joke. In just 



the same way it would seem that, if we are to be real, there must be 



some quality of complexity in the design of our furniture, and it 



m u s t t a k e i t s 



place with us. 



Cannot we get 



some of the won- 



derfulness of a 



h i g h - g r a d e 



motor- car into 



artistic designs ? 



M a c h i n e r y i s 



w o n d e r f u 1 i n 



itself, and only 



fails when it 



attempts to pro- 

 el u c e t h i n g s ; 



there i s m u c h 



Art, though, in a 



fine engine. 



The bookcase 



illustrated in 



Fig. 93 and de 

 signed by Ambrose 



Heal, jun., is interesting in that it has been made in 

 a new Australian wood called &quot; black bean.&quot; It is a 

 very charming grey-brown colour, with cream and 

 dark brown figure, and has been left without any kind 

 of polish. The inlay work is of mother-of-pearl, with 

 lines and bands of brown ebony and boxwood and 

 ebony star inlays. There are two slides in the bottom 

 carcase for placing books upon. It can very truly be 

 said that Mr. Heal has revolutionised the design and 

 production of furniture on a commercial basis ; and 

 the fact must never be lost sight of that Chippendale 

 himself was first and foremost a man desirous of 91. A MAHOGANY CABINET 



90. A MUSIC CABINET. 



