46 
House & Garden 
P ICTURES for any room require the same care in selection that 
you give your other decorations. Our advice based on twenty- 
six years’ experience with American Paintings is at your service. 
"ART NOTES" will he found suggestive 
as a slartmg poinCMay we mail it to you ’ 
I WILLIAM MACBETH 
Incorporated ■ 
I 450 Fifth Avenue New York 
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718 FIFTH 
AV E N U E 
NEW YORK 
LONDON- 
27-29 Brook Street, W. 
Pair affine carved walnut 
William and Mary high hack chairs 
OBJECTS OF ART 
ENGLISH PERIOD FURNITURE 
OLD ENGLISH INTERIORS 
TAPESTRIES 
Charles of London 
A naval prisoner 
of the Napole- 
onic period 
probably made 
this little full- 
rigged ship in its 
straw marque- 
terie cabinet. 
Courtesy Max 
Williams 
Objects of Art Made by Prisoners of War 
{Continued from page IS) 
Italian cousins. I feel sure that the 
Spanish craftsmen did. At any rate 
French prisoners of war have shown 
themselves wonderfully proficient in this 
art in the past. The French prisoners 
of the Napoleonic wars who were quar¬ 
tered in England were prolific in their 
output of this sort. Numerous tea-cad¬ 
dies have I seen from their hands, here 
and there preserved in the cottages of 
the country round about Peterborough. 
At nearby Norman Cross was one of 
the chief camps of the Napoleonic pris¬ 
oners of war. We are told that a regu¬ 
lar market for the art-wares made by 
French prisoners at Norman Cross 
was held daily in the camp. Perth was 
another prisoner of war concentration 
centre and contemporary writers tell us 
that the objects made by the French 
prisoners there were of a finer design 
and quality than like things produced 
by the English townsmen, in conse¬ 
quence of which there was brisk market 
rivalry. At Dartmoor, Stapleton, Liv¬ 
erpool and Greenland Valleyfield the 
French war prisoners exhibited their 
skill. At the Liverpool prison they con¬ 
structed little straw marqueterie cases 
to contain miniature ships and like 
articles. 
Prisoners In Britain 
In Francis Abell’s Prisoners of War in 
Britain, 1756-1815 the author says, in 
speaking of the Greenland Valleyfield 
prison where the making of straw into 
strawplait was carried on by the pris¬ 
oners of war, “The employer gave out 
the straw and paid for the worked arti¬ 
cle, three sous per ‘brasse,’ a little under 
6'. Some men could make twelve 
‘brasses’ a day. Beaudoin (a sergeant- 
major of the 31st Line Regiment) set to 
work at it, and in the course of a 
month became an adept. After four 
years came the remonstrance of the 
country people that this underpaid labor 
by untaxed men was doing infinite in¬ 
jury to them; the Government pro¬ 
hibited the manufacture and much 
misery among the prisoners resulted. 
From this prohibition resulted the out¬ 
side smuggling of straw into the prison 
and selling it later as the manufactured 
article; and a very profitable industry it 
must have been, for we find that, dur¬ 
ing the trial of Matthew Wingrave in 
1813, for engaging in the strawplait 
trade with the prisoners at Valleyfield, 
it came out that Wingrave, who was 
an extensive dealer in the article, had 
actually moved up there from Bed¬ 
fordshire on purpose to carry on the 
trade and had bought cornfields for that 
purpose.” 
What stories these objects of art made 
by prisoners of war could tell could they 
but speak! What silent testimonies of 
grit, patience and fortitude! But per¬ 
haps we may be glad that we do not 
know all they might tell, for to-day has 
sorrow enough and we should be grate¬ 
ful that time has been kind enough to 
leave us just the beauty and not the 
life details of these objects from the 
hands of those who suffered in the yes¬ 
terdays of other wars. 
Another straw 
marqueterie cab¬ 
inet made by a 
naval prisoner of 
Napoleonic days 
and containing a 
model of a ship. 
Courtesy Max 
Williams 
The Role of Furniture Hardware 
{Continued from page 17) 
houette, or shaped and perforated. 
Hinges, likewise, were often treated in 
the same way. 
By far the most carefully and intri¬ 
cately made mounts of the period—they 
really almost form a class by themselves 
—were those that adorned the cabinets 
of lacquer or of ornamental woods. The 
inspiration for this particular kind of 
elaboration, both in contour and in the 
surface motifs used, in all probability 
came from the Orient. Hinges were 
short, broad and numerous; angle or 
corner-pieces re-enforced the corners; 
and most imposing of all were the great 
circular mounts for the lock. All of 
the aforementioned mounts were of yel¬ 
low brass and flat. They were elabor¬ 
ately shaped or fretted—sometimes both 
—and their whole surface was often 
covered with shallow engraving in flow¬ 
ing designs of scrolls, foliage and flow¬ 
ers, frequently showing Chinese charac¬ 
teristics. On black lacquer with gold 
decorations or on bright-hued lacquer, 
mounts less brilliant and ornate would 
have looked insufficient; on cabinets of 
{Continued on page 48) 
