September, 19 2 2 
43 
These circular panels, origin¬ 
ally painted by the French ar¬ 
tist Jolly for the home of 
Francis Cottenet, on the Mud- 
son, now grace a new York 
apartment 
DECORATIVE 
PANELS 
Though Not So Elaborate or Important as Frescoes, These Painted Panels 
Contribute to the Beauty of the Modern Home 
CAROLINE DUER 
T HE decorative panel, as such, had had 
a hard time in surviving the modern 
conditions of home-changing. Whether 
the trouble is with our characters or our cir¬ 
cumstances we do certainly 
move about a great deal more 
than the artists who painted 
panels, and the people who 
had them painted, ever in¬ 
tended. They imagined that 
they were beautifying a home, 
not contributing to the im¬ 
pedimenta of those who now 
lightly “pitch a moving 
tent a day’s march nearer”— 
they know not what! 
Such is the case, however, 
and many pleasant pictures 
set over doors, or mantel¬ 
pieces, or in dining room 
walls, have chanced to be 
abandoned when younger 
members of a family left the 
old family house. Happy 
those who could remove the 
charming paintings and bring 
them, not inappropriately, 
into new surroundings; or 
have beautiful views copied 
by competent hands and 
placed in the time-honored 
positions of panels long since 
gone from them. They make 
a most delightful sort of deco¬ 
ration; not so elaborate as a 
wall fresco, not so important 
as a portrait, but companion¬ 
able to live with and, once 
detached from their original 
resting places, convenient to 
move. 
Of the panels shown in 
these illustrations, seven came 
from one of the fine, digni¬ 
fied old countrv-houses on 
the banks of the Hudson. The house of 
Francis Cottenet, “Nuit”,—next to “Nevis” 
the house of Alexander Hamilton,—and 
now absorbed into the Ardsley Golf Club. 
Harting 
While originally designed for definite places in a room, painted panels 
can be moved about advantageously. This panel by Jolly, made for the 
library overmantel in a Hudson River home, serves for decoration in 
an apartment 
The largest of these panels, that with the 
white steps leading down to the water, was 
once over the library mantelpiece. The two 
other views, one of the distant Hudson and 
one of the bridge across a 
narrow ravine in the grounds, 
were over the doors. They 
hang at present on the draw¬ 
ing room walls of Miss Fanny 
and Mr. Rawlins Cottenet’s 
apartment in New York. The 
round panels with the birds 
and rabbits hang in the pres¬ 
ent dining room about as they 
once were placed in the past 
one, whose high ceiling, long 
French windows and stately 
proportions belonged to a 
period when people built to 
provide themselves with light 
and space, not to economize 
room. Interestingly enough 
the family tradition has it 
that the pictures were painted 
by the French artist, Jolly, 
who also did some decorative 
panels for the Belmont house, 
and who, upon discovering 
some particularly excellent 
method of coloring stuffs, 
abandoned his brush and 
founded the present dyeing 
and cleaning firm of C. Jolly 
and Son. 
The two long lovely land¬ 
scapes, over the beautiful 
tables, are the property of 
Mrs. E. V. Douglass, and 
painted, after two celebrated 
pictures, by her son Victor 
White, whose charming Room 
of the Fountains at Wana- 
maker’s is well known. These 
panels are particularly suit¬ 
able for their place. 
