62 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



February, 19 13 



is led by the same family after it has 

 reached these shores and experienced 

 the "assimilating" process of existence in 

 one of our great American cities; for, 

 somehow, the family customs and usage 

 of generations and centuries speedily 

 succumb to the influence, powerful upon 

 all sides, which urges to the discarding 

 of national characteristics and racial 

 customs and the adopting of what seem 

 to be American ways and the manners 

 of life around about them. Icons repre- 

 sent the Saviour, the Mother and Child, 

 individual saints or group of saints. 

 The flesh portions, such as faces, hands, 

 and feet, are painted in the flat fashion, 

 wholly without any attempt at perspec- 

 tive, which is enjoined by the Greek 



fully half of the intimate pleasure of 

 ownership consists in making one's 

 valued possessions a part of everyday 

 household utility. So in this wonderful 

 house many of the objects used upon the 

 table or elsewhere about the home, arc 

 the result of much traveling into the 

 highways and the by-paths of many dif- 

 ferent lands. The pantry where so 

 many of these wonderful objects are 

 placed is so arranged that it opens into 

 the dining-room and also into one of the 

 two drawing-rooms, which was, per- 

 haps, the original dining-room of the 

 house. Within the deep doorway into 

 the last room are placed shelves which 

 are filled with much antique glass in the 

 form of mediaeval bottles, flagons and 



Jewish brass candelabrum of fine execution 



Church upon those who portray these holy Personages. The drinking cups; brass urns, coffee pots, kettles. Bandboxes 



remaining parts of an icon are repousse in metal of one or attest Mr. Drake's breadth of taste, and they suggest the 



several varieties, and the cleverness of the artist brings out stage coach, Paisley shawls and poke bonnets, those old 



the intricate details of background, costumes, and the stiff, objects of dress most interesting to women. This same era 



formal head dresses or halos, which must be designed in was the age of the sampler, and, excepting the brasses, no 



the archaic style of the unchanging East and from among part of Mr. Drake's great store of treasures is more fascin- 



which the faces peer out with the melancholy air of ating than his collection of these quaint little squares of 



mystery and reticence which seems to express the religious needlework which are everlasting memorials to the taste 



life of Russia and the Russian people. and untiring ingenuity of the little women by whom they 



Between the front hallway and the dining-room, after were so patiently wrought. One room of this interesting 



the manner of an old New York home, is a pantry which is old house has the walls lined with samplers, and they supply 



literally lined with such treasures of brass, pewter, and a note of human interest not often found in a wall-covering 



glass as are in daily use, for some collectors believe, that of any kind that measures the standard of rarity and age. 



The old brasses in the Drake collection are among the finest of the sort in the world 



