64 
House & Garden 
The Seal of Worth 
attesting that the furniture ^vhich bears it 
is of Berkey & Gay manufacture. Like an 
artist’s signature on his painting, it is the 
maker’s identification of his own handi¬ 
work and proof of its genuineness. 
But the user of this furniture requires no 
shop mark to signify its character, its worth 
or its charm; they become an inseparable 
part of the atmosphere of the home, to be 
handed down to generations which follow. 
Berkey & Gay furniture is an investment in 
more than the mere chattels of a household. 
It has a cultural value which grows with 
years of association. 
When planning spring replenishment, householders 
will find helpful suggestions in “The Story of Span- 
Umbrian Furniture” and “The Style of Knoleworth,” 
booklets which describe and illustrate two interesting 
Berkey & Gay styles. Send 25 cents for either booklet. 
BERKEY & GAY 
FURNITURE COMPANY 
444 Monroe Ave., Grand Rapids, Mich. 
A new and comprehensive exhibit comprising thousands of pieces 
of Berkey & Gay furniture may be seen a I our New York shoiv- 
rooms, 113-119 West 40lh St., or at Grand Rapids. Visitors 
should be accompanied by, or have a letter of introduction from, 
their furniture dealer. 
SPENCER, POWERS & MARTIN 
ARCHITECTS, 5 N. LA SALLE STREET 
CHICAGO 
SPECIALIZING IN DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE, ARE EQUIPPED TO 
EXECUTE. ANYWHERE, ON A STRICTLY PROFESSIONAL BASIS 
COMMISSIONS FOR 
COMMUNITY PLANNING, INDUSTRIAL HOUSING 
SUBURBAN RESIDENCES, APARTMENTS AND COUNTRY 
HOUSES, INCLUDING LANDSCAPE DESIGN, PRIVATE 
WATER SUPPLY AND SEWAGE SYSTEMS. SPECIAL 
FURNITURE AND DECORATION 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
EXECUTED WORKS 
ON REQUEST 
ROBERT C. SPENCER, JR., F.A.I.A. 
HORACE S. POWERS, A.I.A. 
EDWIN 0. MARTIN 
Plasterwork in Modern Decoration 
{Continued from page 62) 
entirely different course and there grew 
up a style, purely local and thoroughly 
domestic in character, which flourished 
throughout the Tudor period and the 
Stuart period up to the Restoration 
and, even after that date, was percepti¬ 
bly felt for a long time. The English 
plaster workers were craftsmen rather 
than artists. The human figure and 
animal figures alike were too much for 
them. Their human figures, however 
spirited, considered from the artist’s 
point of view not only lacked finesse 
but were cloddish and often merely 
grotesque caricatures. Their animals 
were usually lumpy and pudding-like. 
Nevertheless, humans, birds and beasts 
were intensely decorative. These same 
plasterers displayed great ingenuity in 
devising a wide variety of vigorous and, 
at the same time, delicately modeled 
systems of geometrical ribbing and 
strap work interlacings along with foli¬ 
ated and floral sprigs and repeats. All 
of their work, even with the crudities 
of human and animal forms, was in¬ 
tensely decorative and pleasing and 
wrought with a broad freedom and 
freshness. 
It is this type of plaster decoration 
that is peculiarly in keeping with pan¬ 
eled oak rooms, and it is the reproduc¬ 
tions of this school, done in a coarse- 
textured creamy plaster, that have ma¬ 
terially aided a re-awakening taste for 
plaster decoration. There is no good 
reason why, holding to the same tech¬ 
nique, a great deal of interesting orig¬ 
inal work of the same sort should not 
be executed. Finicky exactitude and a 
sand papered perfection of plaster sur¬ 
face, however, will spoil the whole ef¬ 
fect. Incidentally, it will pay to con¬ 
sider barrel vaults, coves and other ceil¬ 
ing shapes. One cannot afford to neglect 
the ceiling of a room any more than one 
can the sky of a landscape. 
Wren, Gibbon and Adam 
From the time of Sir Christopher 
Wren to the middle of the 18th Century, 
the dominant Palladian influence in 
architecture required a more regular and 
formal manner of ceiling decoration and 
there came into fashion the stately and 
* more heavily detailed sort of plaster- 
work that often appeared as a reflection 
of the Grinling Gibbon school of wood 
carving — fruits, flowers, foliage, birds, 
cherub heads and the other familiar 
motifs — and, with its symmetrical dis¬ 
position of large panels, coves, and 
coffers, accorded with the robust and 
ordered scale of the period. These dec¬ 
orations were often modeled or cast 
separately and then put up by sections, 
many of the smaller connecting features 
being modeled in situ. The same kind 
of plaster decoration in bold relief .with 
festoons, drops, trophies, armorial bear¬ 
ings and figures often graced the upper 
portions of the walls also. 
With the ascendency of the Adam 
style, after the middle of the century, 
an altogether new plaster technique, if 
! indeed it can properly be called plas- 
i ter, came to the fore. The exquisite low 
j reliefs and the profusion of attenuated 
I Pompeian details, which the Brothers 
Adam and their contemporaries and imi¬ 
tators habitually used, were executed 
with a composition of dead plaster or 
gypsum combined with a glutinous 
compound and pressed while hot into 
metal molds. Hence the sharp definition 
, of even the minutest lines and finest 
edges and the rather hard effect result¬ 
ing therefrom. This sort of decoration 
ensured elegance, accuracy and a wealth 
of fine detail that would have been diffi¬ 
cult to achieve in a different medium, 
such as the earlier plaster used in, the 
17th Century, but despite its great 
beauty and delicacy, it conveyed a cer¬ 
tain metallic effect and lacked the sym¬ 
pathetic warmth of the older work. The 
whole system of details introduced by 
the Brothers Adam—the circles, lozenges, 
ovals, hexagons, octagons, paterae, fan 
shapes, medallions and plaques with 
classic figures and the dainty arabesques 
■—are familiar to all. 
Before passing on, the reader should 
be reminded that the Adam school em¬ 
ployed relief decorations extensively on 
walls as well as oii ceilings, and par¬ 
ticular attention should be called to the 
effective use, made on walls, of slightly 
countersunk panels, or of panels formed 
on an uninterrupted surface with deh- 
cate foliage bands, containing a single 
medallion. Such decorations may very 
easily be applied even to old walls that 
have a good surface. After the Adam 
school, plasterwork sank into a dreary 
state of coarseness and vulgarity. 
The Practical Side 
As to the purely practical application 
of decorative plasterwork for our own 
requirements, the following facts and 
suggestions are to be kept in mind. 
Plaster decorations are either modeled 
in situ or else they are modeled, or cast, 
in separate pieces and applied, being 
stuck in place with plaster of Paris and 
lime putty, the small connecting details 
being modeled in situ. Large casting- 
with a wooden fraljjfework or a canvas 
backing are screwed to the joists. 
Many readers of House & Garden are 
doubtless able to model in clay. With 
a little practice they could easily learn 
to model separate pieces in plaster which 
a plasterer could then put in place. 
Have the plaster well seasoned, that is 
to say, the lime must be well slaked and 
toughened, worked up, chopped and 
beaten. For a rather coarse texture, 
like the old work, do not have the sand 
riddled too fine and robbed of its grit. 
It may also be well to stiffen the mix¬ 
ture with short white hair. 
Unless one is going to experiment 
with working in the old stucco duro, 
which while extremely plastic and slow 
setting, becomes intensely hard and 
strong with the addition of marble dust, 
and admits of high relief and under¬ 
cutting, it will be better to avoid any 
attempt at undercutting, high relief, or 
sharp brittle lines and stick, instead, to 
mellow, soft modeling of fairly low re¬ 
lief. Somewhat conventionalized de¬ 
signs will probably prove the most suc¬ 
cessful and let them be bold and virile 
rather than over-refined. For modeling 
in situ or in detached work, dies may 
be made and used for impressing on the 
pats of plaster such details as the vein- 
ing of leaves, the petals of rosettes and 
the like. 
Work done wholly by plasterers, from 
designs prepared by the architect or the 
householder, will need close supervision 
because the fault of the capable modern 
plasterer, from the decorative point of 
view, is that he insists upon doing his 
job in what he considers the workman¬ 
like manner he was taught as a prentice. 
Unless he is carefully watched, therefore, 
he will do too good a job, too smooth, 
too slick and finished and, of course, 
monotonous. Architects are constantly 
finding the same trouble in other 
branches of work where texture is con¬ 
cerned. 
When the plaster decoration is not 
modeled in situ, but is formed of separ¬ 
ate parts and put in place piece by 
piece, the operation may be carried on 
either when an entire surface is to be 
newly plastered or when an old surface, 
that is thoroughly sound, is to be em¬ 
bellished. When a whole surface is 
to be fresh plastered, the general out¬ 
line and places of embellishment may be 
scratched or marked on the gray or 
“brown” coat. They may then be 
stuck in place when the final “white 
coat” is given. The surface to be 
{Continued on page 66) 
