December, 19 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



441 



tries to arrange the sprays of Bittersweet, the vines will 

 inevitably sprawl out in all directions and reduce them- 

 selves to an uninteresting mass in spite of one's best efforts. 

 The graland, the hanging pendant, having a mass or 

 bunch of small blooms attached at intervals to the main 

 green stem of vine leaves, laurel or other decorative bough, 

 has been used for centuries past and revived by different 

 nations during their efforts to realize for themselves 

 beauty in their home surroundings on festive occasions, and 

 is still our model for the best we can do in formal deco- 

 ration. 



Simply to bring into the house great masses of green 

 boughs and hang them about with no sense of definite ar- 

 rangement, may be agreeable in some kinds of houses, but 

 not in others. Where a very large living-room or library, 

 for instance, must show itself in Christmas array for the 

 holiday guests, it is better to make the boughs into long 

 garlands with Holly or other bright berries woven in here 

 and there, and then suspend these garlands along the walls, 

 dropping them down to the floor in the corners and having 

 some special feature above the fire-place or other equally 

 important wall space in the room. This may be further 

 emphasized by the placing of tall plants in pots, such as 

 the Baytree or Cedar, on either side of the fire-place or 

 by the entrance door. 



Naturally, one will not intrude pink or rose-colored 

 flowers into a room having the Holly and bright red for 

 its principal decoration. Carnations or white flowers would 

 be in harmony and add with their perfume the needed fra- 

 grance to the sense of completeness already afforded the 

 eye in the colors of the Holly red ribbons and glossy green 

 leaves on the walls. 



When the Mistletoe adds its unobtrusive presence to the 

 house decoration, it is as well to mass it in one place where 

 fun and frolic may happily develop, rather than to scatter 

 it about in numerous places. 



The decorations of the principal rooms of a house often 

 occupy the sole attention of the housewife, who sometimes 

 forgets to put a spray of brilliant color in the guest room, 

 where it would be quite as much appreciated as elsewhere 

 in the house. 



Table decorations for the grand Christmas dinner will 

 best partake of the same general kind used elsewhere in 

 the house; not too many, however, since the same reason 

 for not having too much about the rooms applies equally 

 to the Christmas feast where a few flowers in tall vases 

 placed where they will not hide the guests from one another 

 by their large mass, will prove most in harmony for the 

 success and pleasure of the feast. 



a H SEE B SEES BHBS BBE BE E 



AQUAMARINE GLASS 



I Continued from page 419) 

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subjects, in which the vase with the phantom-like schools of 

 fish, all swimming in one direction, is particularly effective in 

 its reproduction of their illusive qualities. The shape of the 

 vase is made to enable the fish to be seen readily from any 

 point. Another example shows a fish diving into an en- 

 tangled net. The fish itself is absolutely transparent, and 

 can only be seen when the vase is held in a certain light, 

 but the vase is designed to enable one to place it in such 

 a position that the fish 

 will be readily visible. 



In one of the vases 

 suggesting a compote is 

 shown a seaweed-covered 

 rock upon which are dis- 

 posed a variety of sea 

 anemones in natural col- 



ors, the entire motif being encased in a solid mass of clear, 

 water-like glass. 



An attractive piece for the living-room table which can 

 be used to hold tall grasses or flowers, is one of the largest 

 vases illustrated, and represents gold fish playfully darting 

 through masses of lacey, diaphanous seaweed. The effect 

 is distinctly one of motion and not of solid objects im- 

 prisoned within a mass of solid glass. This is designed to 

 show a distinct water line, as are many examples, the upper 

 part of the vase being blown thin as a receptacle for water, 

 the addition of which sometimes eliminates the apparent 

 water line and produces an actual one. In the subjects in 

 which fish are used as the motif of decoration, a dragon-fly 

 hovering over the surface of the water adds greatly to the 

 decorative effect, as well as to the illusion. 



Still another example is designed to represent a jelly fish, 

 its translucent body apparently floating through the water. 

 The shape is made to conform to the decoration in the base 

 of the vase, allowing the upper part to be used for flowers 

 if desired, as in most of these vases. 



In the artistic glass-making of France to-day, and even 

 the Venetian glass of the Renaissance, together with the 

 various productions of the Saracens, Romans and Egyp- 

 tians, nothing so unique and illusive as these examples of 

 American glass can be found, which is so equally adaptable 

 to the decoration of the country as well as the city house. 



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A REMODELED CITY HOUSE 



( Continued from page 4-25) 



them and they have been housed in a manner that is worthy 

 of emulation. Between the windows and on either side of 

 the mantel, plain bookshelves, with a closet below, have been 

 erected to the same height as the windows. Moldings at 

 the top and bottom and a groove along the outer edge of 

 the shelves and uprights have removed all appearances of 

 boxiness. In this groove and around the panels of the 

 doors there is a stripe of green paint. In this bookroom 

 the owner has shown her appreciation of cretonne as a 

 decorative fabric when properly used. Not the cretonnes 

 with dainty, light, floral designs that suggest a bedroom, 

 but beautiful low-toned fabrics that are eminently fitted 

 for a library. At the windows are overcurtains 

 hung in straight folds and a shaped valance of 

 black cretonne. That is, the background is a soft, velvety 

 black, which is relieved by mauve and blue birds perched on 

 branches that are designed in the Chinese taste. 



IHIllHIligillll^ 



COTTAGE FIGURES 



(Continued from page 435) 



It is interesting to follow the subject of these cottage 

 figures, or, as they are sometimes called, chimney orna- 

 ments, the most interesting of which were peasant groups, 

 or single figures, representing phases of country life. 



The finest porcelain figures were Dresden, Chelsea and 

 Derby. These depicted shepherdesses and dairy maids of 

 an idealized type, reminiscent of the Petit Trianon period. 

 They were not the ordinary everyday types such as one 

 might have seen in actual life in the days when these 



figures were designed 

 for the potters by ar- 

 tists of the period, but 

 rather of those depict- 

 ing court ladies in the 

 masquerade of imitation 

 creations of a Watteau 

 or of a Frangonard. 



