House & Garden 
A LL the taste expended in the bathroom 
JlX. is useless unless the water closet is 
quiet of operation. A noisy closet is an 
annoyance to you, an embarrassment 
to your guests. 
THE TRENTON POTTERIES CO. 
SILENT CLOSET 
incorporates special features to make its operation 
quiet and thorough. Its sanitary features over¬ 
come the danger of clogging and subsequent 
damage. No effort has been spared to make the 
Si-wel-clo and its component parts the very best. 
The Si-wel-clo is but one item of our complete line 
of all-clay plumbing fixtures. “Tepeco” Plumbing 
is china or porcelain, solid and substantial. Dirt 
does not readily cling to its glistening^ white sur¬ 
face, nor will that surface be worn away by 
scouring. A wise investment—a beautiful one. 
Before you build or renovate send for our in¬ 
structive hook, “Bathrooms of Character,” PS. 
“The 
Trenton 
Potteries 
Company 
TRENTON .'. NEW JERSEY 
Plasterwork in Modern Decoration 
{Continued from page 33) 
vices of the utmost delicacy or for 
modeling large and bold figures; durable 
and resistant; and susceptible of great 
diversity of finish and texture ranging 
from a mirror-like polish to a creamy, 
granular chalk-like surface. It can be 
modeled, stamped, incised, and cast, and 
it may be colored and stencilled. 
It is a misapprehension to regard 
decorative plasterwork as applicable 
only to ceilings. It was once extensively 
used for the embellishment of wall sur¬ 
faces and the field for that sort of or¬ 
namentation is still just as free and 
legitimate as it has ever been. The 
overmantel space, panels over doors or 
above windows, tympana above re¬ 
cessed doors and windows, lunettes over 
windows or at the ends of barrel- 
vaulted ceilings—any wall space, in fact, 
that is limited and clearly defined and 
possessed of some emphasis of location 
that invites a measure of decoration— 
are all eminently appropriate places for 
decorative plasterwork. In such places 
no one hesitates for a moment to hang 
plaster casts of della Robbia subjects 
and similar compositions, perhaps col¬ 
ored and gilt, as detached or detachable 
pieces of decoration, thus incidentally 
paying a tribute to decorative piaster- 
work without their being more than 
half conscious of. doing so. It would 
be quite as fitting to fill those same 
places with plaster decoration, modeled 
in situ, or else to incorporate the 
plaques and panels of della Robbia and 
other reproductions, and model suitable 
plaster settings about them, keeping the 
whole composition in the white or add¬ 
ing color and gold, whichever might 
seem preferable. 
This incorporation of previously ex¬ 
ecuted plaster reliefs is mechanically a 
simple matter and ensures really fine 
plaster decoration of a certain type at 
a very low cost. Again the same spaces 
might be filled with conventionalized 
repeats, modeled and stamped in situ, 
or cast separately and then assembled 
and set. 
Mural Plasterwork 
For a more extended and ambitious 
use of mural plaster decoration, if one 
be so ificlined, a frieze, the cornice, the 
cove above the cornice, or the whole 
wall space between the wainscot and 
the cornice, provide ample opportu¬ 
nity. In the last named instance the 
wall becomes essentially a decoration 
and must be given the decorative right 
of way, other features being kept away 
from it. 
So far as ceilings are concerned, to 
which for a long time past convention 
seems to have confined plaster adorn¬ 
ment, the possibilities are almost with¬ 
out limit. That so comparatively lit¬ 
tle serious attention has been paid in 
our day to plaster decoration as a ceil¬ 
ing resource is probably due to the 
perfunctory and unalluring character 
of the ceilings so embellished, by the 
square foot or the yard, in the middle 
of the last century. There are plenty 
of them still intact to exert a baleful 
influence and prejudice popular taste 
against employing any similar means to 
create interest. It is not unnatural that 
people who know decorative plaster^' 
work only in an unfavorable form 
should conclude that it is better to have 
no decoration than bad decoration. And 
yet, there is something illogical in hav¬ 
ing the walls replete with interest and 
then cut the interest short at the angle 
of wall and ceiling, leaving overhead a 
“broad, blank waste of white.” 
It is far more logical to make the 
ceiling a feature of distinct interest and, 
if need be, to concentrate interest there, 
keeping the walls, paneled or otherwise, 
comparatively plain to act as a foil to 
the furnishings and decorations that will 
necessarily be placed against them. If 
one seeks precedent for such marshaling 
of decoration, there is no lack of it, 
from the frequent practice of the 
Brothers Adam and their contempo¬ 
raries all the way back to the days of 
Queen Elizabeth. The same may be 
said of decorative practice in France and 
Italy, and many an Italian room of the 
Renaissance period had severely plain 
walls while the ceiling was resplendent 
with adornment. The use of piaster- 
work as a means of ceiling decoration , 
does not necessarily involve a preten¬ 
tious scheme nor a large space. It is 
so adaptable and so flexible in its modes 
that it may be employed, in one form 
or another, equally well in a stately 
apartment and in the simplest of small 
rooms. 
Renaissance Decorations 
During the Renaissance period plaster 
decoration received a great impetus 
through the work of the Italian stuc- 
cotori who, inspired by many newly- 
found masterpieces wrought by the old 
Roman plaster artists, not only emu¬ 
lated in stucco-duro the beautiful low 
reliefs executed by their ancient pre¬ 
decessors, but also developed a sys¬ 
tem of bold modeling of large figures 
and vigorous details in high relief or 
in the round. They wrought and taught 
in France and England, as well as in 
Italy, and the seeds of their teaching 
fell on fertile soil. In France, as a re¬ 
sult, was developed the admirable tech¬ 
nique that produced the impressive 
plasterwork of the Louis XIV style and 
the intricate and often exceedingly deli¬ 
cate creations of the following reign. 
In England the development took an 
{Continued on page 64) 
A ceiling detail of “Solicitude,” 
Penn House, Philadelphia 
