236 
pigment has not been employed to jm 
supplement the craft of the cabinet- | 
maker or, perhaps, the simpler 
handiwork of the carpenter. From 
the Eleventh Century onward to the 
Renaissance a popular vigorous 
sense of color ensured the use of 
painted decoration for the more im- 
portant articles of furniture, irre- 
spective of their form. 
With the Renaissance regard for 
form became supreme and the taste 
for varied and vivid color fell into 
abeyance among those that attended 
the behests of fashion—and be it re- 
membered that the mutability of 
fashion is nearly as apparent in mat- 
ters of furniture as in types of wear- 
ing apparel. However, notwith- 
standing the defection of the de- 
votees of ruling styles, the fondness 
for painted ornamentation lived on 
in many quarters, ready to flourish 
forth again sturdily at the least en- 
couragement. Especially among the 
Dutch and Bavarian peasantry was the tradition of furni- 
ture painting kept alive and, though both style and execution 
are at times extremely crude, we find virile spontaneity and 
originality of conception to claim our respectful attention if 
not always our admiration. 
In the latter part of the Seventeenth Century a wave of 
the so-called ‘‘Chinese taste’? brought in the craze for lac- 
quered decoration. Lacquered oriental boxes and chests 
were eagerly sought and ruthlessly broken up to supply 
ceFG, ; 
ath ee £4: 
BE A hoe 
Decorated chair of “English Empire”’ 
Yi 
pattern 
AMERICAN HOMES AND 
Cabinet decorated in Bavarian style 
GARDENS July, 1912 
panels for the adornment of cabi- 
nets. Experiments in the manufac- 
ture of lacquer, aided by the sugges- 
tions of returned Eastern mission- 
aries, were not altogether unsuccess- 
ful in their imitations and before 
long furniture entirely covered with 
lacquer and decorated in Chinese 
patterns was produced in abundance. 
Among the most successful mak- 
ers of a new sort of furniture, 
coated with color and covered with 
varnish, was one Martin, a French 
coach painter of the early Eigh- 
teenth Century, whose business 
theretofore had been to decorate 
coach doors with heraldic blazonings 
and flower borders. His varnish 
was a fine transparent lac-polish 
susceptible of taking on a beautiful 
surface. The work associated with 
his name is usually found on furni- 
ture such as tables or bookcases, as 
well as on small articles like needle 
cases and snuff boxes. Though his 
lacquer formula is said to have died with him, his imitators 
and pupils painted and enameled furniture of various kinds 
after his manner. Sometimes in the vernis-Martin work 
the excellent solid color—frequently a beautiful green—of 
the table or cabinet or chair is unbroken by any ornamenta- 
tion save the gold mountings. 
About the middle of the Eighteenth Century the brothers 
Adam, most notable English architects, began to design fur- 
niture to harmonize in spirit and style with the stately houses 
GELLER a 
An old chair restored and decorated 
