58 
House & Garden 
To gamble with 
the weather is to 
play a losing game 
Your beautiful lawns and gar¬ 
dens, on which you have expended 
so much money, time and labor, 
should not be left to the mercy of 
the scorching dry spells of summer 
when it is so easy to protect them 
with the 
Systems of Xrri^atton 
An Underground System of piping in 
conjunction with the Cornell Rain 
Cloud Nozzles sends the water evenly 
in a fine spray over every foot of your 
lawn or garden. A turn of the control 
valve and you have an artificial rain 
which can be regulated at will in dura¬ 
tion or quantity. 
The Underground System, adapted for 
lawns, can be installed without disfigurement 
of the turf and does not interfere with 
mowing. 
The Overhead System for Gardens is sup¬ 
plied from underground piping and upright 
nozzles which do not interfere with cultiva¬ 
tion. The Cornell Portable Sprinkler is 
recommended for small areas of 15 to 45 
feet diameter. 
Write for illustrated literature. 
W. G. CORNELL CO. 
Engineers and Contractors 
Plumbing, Heating, Lighting, 
Automatic Sprinklers, Water Sup¬ 
ply Systems, Sewage Disposal 
Plants, Automatic Sewage Ejectors. 
Union Square, New York 
Rain Cloud Nozzles 
$2.00 to $3.00 
f. o. b. N. Y. 
Chicago: Railway Exchange 
Baltimore: Munsey Bldg. 
Boston: 334 Shawmut Ave. 
Newark: 86 Park PI. 
Kansas City, Mo.: Commerce Trust 
Bldg. 
Washington: 923-12th St., N, W, 
Cleveland: Leader-News Bldg. 
Patriotic Prints of Bygone Days 
(Continued from page 25) 
old multi-colored chintzes cannot be 
surpassed in loveliness. 
' “The old chintz of the eighteenth 
and early nineteenth centuries was 
of the highest artistic merit,” says 
Arthur Hayden in “Chats on Cot¬ 
tage and Farmhouse Furniture.” “In 
the heyday of its fame the fabric was 
exceedingly fashionable amongst the 
richest persons, and there are abun¬ 
dant records of the popularity of old 
English chintzes upon the continent. 
For, at its best periods, the chintz 
was not a base imitation of more ex¬ 
pensive fabrics; it did not, for in¬ 
stance, occupy the relationship of 
pewter to silver or moulded compo¬ 
sition to woodcarving. On the con¬ 
trary, the designing of chintzes is an 
art of distinction, governed by canons 
which bear little relationship to other 
decorative textile crafts.” 
The Chintz in History 
A 16th Century Portuguese writer, 
by name Odoardo Barbosa, gives us 
an interesting early reference to 
printed fabrics: “Great quantities of 
cotton cloths, admirably painted, are 
held in highest estimation.” But 
even some 200 years before his time 
the narrators of the romance of com¬ 
merce were celebrating the chintzes 
of the Coromandel India coast. 
Doubtless these printed fabrics of 
the earlier centuries attained an in¬ 
tricacy and beauty that were long 
denied the European printed textiles 
which they inspired. Early examples 
of the latter are in no way compar¬ 
able, artistically or technically, with 
contemporary India prints. Even to¬ 
day it would be difficult to improve 
esthetically on the beautiful printed 
stuffs that come to us from the 
countries of the Orient. 
We do not know with certainty the 
circumstances attending the introduc¬ 
tion into Europe of the manufacture 
of printed fabrics. Long before Eng¬ 
lish weavers had undertaken the in¬ 
dustry, the printing of fabrics flour¬ 
ished on the continent. The 16th 
Century references to printed cot¬ 
tons in England are so few and so 
vague that we are practically with¬ 
out knowledge of the earliest manu¬ 
factories of these fabrics. We do 
know, however, that a veritable legion 
of skilled craftsmen in the textile 
arts settled in the British Isles dur¬ 
ing the latter half of the 17th Cen¬ 
tury. It is to them, probably, that 
the art owes its introduction there. 
An Old Printer at Work 
The Print Room of the British Mu¬ 
seum exhibits a quaint old trade 
card—itself the impression of a wood 
block such as the cloth printers used 
—which bears the representation of a 
cotton printer at work. In the cos¬ 
tume of his time, the reign of James 
H, he stands before a long, broad 
Jacobean table, lengthwise of which 
lies a piece of cloth, one-third show¬ 
ing the pattern which the printer has 
impressed on it. Behind the left end 
of the table is set a Jacobean stool 
on which rests a circular basin con¬ 
taining the color which a boy is wait¬ 
ing to apply to the wood block for 
printing. The master-printer is in 
the act of impressing a section of the 
pattern on the white cloth by means 
of the wood block, which he is ham¬ 
mering with a wooden mallet. The 
text, inscript of the period, _ reads: 
“Jacob Stamps living at ye sighn of 
the Callicoes Lineings Silkes Stuffs 
New or Quid at Reasonable Rates.” 
This old mode of block printing 
maintained for fully two hundred 
years, until the inventive genius of 
the 19th Century joined hands with 
commerce to the craft’s almost com¬ 
plete discouragement. However, a 
revival of interest in the old arts was 
inspired by such enthusiasts as Will¬ 
iam Morris. The hand printed fabrics 
have been restored to favor, and to¬ 
day they again play an important part 
in the decoration of the modern 
home. 
Early Processes 
Richmond, Bow and Old Ford, 
London, became the earliest centers 
for printed chintzes in England. The 
few extant specimens of 17th Cen¬ 
tury chintz show us that the early 
printed cottons were crude enough. 
At first more than one color was not 
attempted. The next step appears to 
have been to add to the monochrome 
effect by applying washes of dye, by 
either freehand or stencil application, 
to the outline pattern. This was done 
by brushing the color on as required, 
a process slow, laborious and fraught 
with uncertainties. An examination 
of these early pieces, treasures though 
they are from an antiquarian point 
of view, reveals a smudgy appearance 
resulting from the thickness of the 
dye-inks with which the patterns were 
printed. The early materials were 
very coarse canvas-like cloths. 
With the advent of the 18th Cen¬ 
tury the cloth for receiving the print¬ 
ed patterns was much improved, and 
it was not long before finely woven 
textures supplanted the cruder ones. 
This greatly facilitated the develop¬ 
ment of textile color prints and the 
Queen Anne chintzes were, in conse¬ 
quence, infinitely superior to those of 
Charles H, James H, or William and 
Mary reigns. So popular did these 
improved patterned fabrics become 
that the chintz industry not only 
rivaled that of the silk weavers, but 
for a time threatened to drive the 
latter out of business. Indeed, so bit¬ 
ter became the feeling on the subject 
between the two crafts, that riots re¬ 
sulted and an appeal was made to 
Parliament for protection by the silk 
manufacturers of Spitalfields. His¬ 
tory records that the silkworkers 
were so enraged because Westminster 
did not immediately forbid the wear¬ 
ing of chintz that the delegation 
which had carried the petition to Lon¬ 
don gave vent to its wrath by tear¬ 
ing off all chintz gowns that were 
encountered on the homeward jour¬ 
ney. Finally Parliament passed an act 
of 1736 forbidding printed cottons 
and linens, an act which was soon re¬ 
pealed and followed by an increased 
vogue in chintz. In France as well 
it was at one time considered expe¬ 
dient to prohibit the manufacture of 
printed textiles; the restriction ex¬ 
tended until 1759. 
The Golden Age of Chintzes 
Authorities seem to be agreed in 
considering the middle of the 18th 
Century as the golden age of old- 
time printed chintzes. Collectors 
eagerly seek specimens of this period, 
though they are all too rare to en¬ 
courage hope in this direction except 
for occasional finds. It was during 
the years around 1760 that multi¬ 
color patterns were so beautifully 
and satisfactorily wrought with 
superimposed wood block impres¬ 
sions. Chippendale furniture of the 
time naturally led to the popularity 
of Chinese motifs in design, and 
lovely indeed these were. The inter¬ 
twining flower sprays that marked the 
printed fabrics of Queen Anne’s day 
now gave way to motifs in separated 
positions, “little disjointed islands 
floating in mid-air,” Hayden aptly 
calls them. The faniille verte, famille 
(Continued on page 60) 
