04 
House & Garden 
PI RECTORY 0/ DECORATION 8 FINE ARTS' 
SERVICE TABLE WAGON 
Saves Thousands of Steps 
(1) Has large broad Table Top (20x30 in.) 
(2) TWO Undershelves (to transport 
ALL the table dishes in ONE TRIP.) 
(3) Large center pull-out Drawer. 
(4) Double End Guiding Handles. 
(5) Equipped with four (4) Rubber Tired 
Scientifically Silent Swivel Wheels. 
(6) A beautiful extra glass Serving Tray. 
Write for descriptive pamphlet and dealers name 
THE COMBINATION STUDIOS 
504-G Cunard Bldg.. Chicago. Ill. 
This reproduction of a Col¬ 
onial glass tie back comes in 
crystal, blue, opal, amethyst 
or topaz. It is 4%" in diam¬ 
eter and is priced at $4.50 a 
pair. It may be purchased 
through the 
House & Garden 
Shopping Service 
19 West 44th Street, 
New York City. 
The Colors of Fall 
Are you planning to re-dress your rooms in the mood of 
autumn? And are you perhaps a little in doubt about the 
decorations—what to choose or where to get it? Then let 
House & Garden help. Write to the 
Information Service 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
19 W. 44th St., New York 
A simple Georgian I’.racket suitable for the Colonial 
Residence in which simplicity is the keynote 
Cassidy Company 
INCORPORATED 
Designers and iManufacturers of Lighting Fixtures 
Since 1867 
101 PARK AVENUE AT FORTIETH STREET 
NEW YORK CITY 
Tapestries in the Decorative Schemes 
(Continued from page 49) 
tive Gothic tapestry was an elaborate 
kind of material, a luxurious woven 
wool to hang over the cold and barren 
stones. This was hung in rather full 
folds from ceiling to floor or to the top 
of the two or three foot paneled base, 
covering the whole length of the wall. 
There were the mille fleurs designs, the 
hunting scenes, the long and complicated 
battle tapestries and the peasant pieces. 
Hanging Gothic Designs 
Today we try to convert them into 
a kind of picture and this distorts their 
finest qualities. Because they were de¬ 
signed to be hung entirely to the floor 
the pattern on them focuses rather high 
and if hung at picture height, they 
seem uncomfortably out of reach of the 
eye. And, too, when used as a picture 
they seem unsatisfyingly disorganized. 
The drawing of a decorative Gothic 
tapestry is conceived, not for the steady 
and minute examination granted to a 
picture, skillful though it is, but for a 
general decorative effect, with strong 
outlines and broad flat surfaces that will 
avoid confusion in the folds of the ma¬ 
terial. Stretch the fabric flat and it 
loses much of its pictorial quality. 
The ecclesiastical Gothic, on the other 
hand, is a kind of mural, the Northern 
version of the Italian church painting. 
It is the supplement to stained glass 
windows, part of the color relief of the 
cathedral interior. Playing the part of 
a decorative painting it, too, is but lit¬ 
tle focussed. The interest and episode 
are distributed equally over the whole 
with only moments of accent and no 
one emphatic center. Being more nearly 
a painting in its character it can be hung 
flatter, with fewer folds, and usually, it 
can be hung higher. 
Renaissance Tapestries 
The Renaissance swept tapestry be¬ 
fore it straight into the field of painting. 
The designs became centered and dra¬ 
matic, truly pictorial. The textile tra¬ 
dition, however, held true for quite a 
while and tapestry in the 16th Century 
was still being used to cover walls from 
top to floor. The weaver filled his 
spaces with rich subordinated ornament, 
landscapes and flowers and minor scenes 
in a more appropriate decorative man¬ 
ner. In fact, many Renaissance tapes¬ 
tries look like a decorative textile with 
an unrelated painting suddenly imposed 
upon them in quite a different scale. As 
paintings these tapestries are poor and 
should be used as decoration simply and 
hung as originally intended the full 
height of the wall in wide vertical folds. 
In the 17th Century tapestry went 
two ways at once. The painting aspect 
of the Renaissance stepped out, and 
took up its journey independently, trav¬ 
eling on into the huge woven episode of 
Rubens and his mistaken contemporaries 
and of the early Gobelin. The decora¬ 
tive interest, on the other hand that had 
filled the interstices of the 16th Century 
pieces with little scenes and bits of 
foliage spread out to cover the whole 
in the verdures. These verdures are 
valuable as rich and quiet backgrounds 
softly and unobtrusively hung. They 
may be used as a permanent wall cov¬ 
ering, stretched flat like a leather or a 
paper, part of the structure of the room. 
Though simple in their possibilities 
these verdures often are misused today. 
They are set up and made important as 
a picture panel, an honor which they 
do not merit in the least. 
The Rubens and early Gobelin types, 
however, are no simple problem in any 
decorative scheme. Only in wide spaces 
without much conflicting furniture can 
they truly succeed. But the ambitious 
householder continues to hang them in 
his drawing room regardless of the scale 
of walls and furniture. 
18 th Century Work 
In tapestry, as in all things decorative, 
the second half of the 18th Century 
offered a new conception. There were 
no more bulging animals bursting off 
the walls, no more quiet, dull toned 
verdures either, but gay, brilliant, deli¬ 
cate designs, that starting as rivals to 
the luxurious silks, ended as substitutes 
for the painted panels. These tapestries 
of 18th Century France are truly paint¬ 
ed weaves. They and they only can 
overlook their woven quality and be 
stretched flat in frame or panel molding 
as a picture. 
Tapestry has been many things to 
many men and to confuse the kinds is 
to lose the value of them all. A Gothic 
tapestry stretched tight in a frame is 
flat and dead. A mille fleur as a dec¬ 
orative piece above the natural level of 
the eye conceals itself and confuses the 
balance of the room. A Renaissance 
piece treated as a painting is neither 
good painting nor good tapestry, and 
a 17th or 18th Century verdure made 
important as a panel is an absurdity. It 
is not a panel but a background. In 
the same manner hang a late 18th Cen¬ 
tury piece as a background and you 
have sacrificed all of its perfection and 
won nothing in return. 
Delphiniums for American Gardens 
(Continued from page 61) 
ity of varieties continually propagated 
in this way is weakened. There is a 
theory among many plantsmen that 
plants, like animals, have their natural 
period of life, and that only by a rebirth 
through a natural process of reproduc¬ 
tion can a species long exist. According 
to this theory a cutting or root division 
is merely a portion of an individual al¬ 
ready old, and cannot live as long or 
possess the vitality of a youthful seedling 
impregnated with the germ of a new 
life. 
Fortunately for those of us who love 
delphiniums, it is possible for anyone to 
have healthy vigorous plants as fine as 
any of the most costly named varieties 
raised in Europe, by planting seeds saved 
from some of the best forms. A well 
established plant or two of the best, as 
a stock from which you can save your 
own seeds, is all that is necessary to be¬ 
gin with. If these cannot be obtained 
there are houses in Europe from whom 
seed of most of the best named varie¬ 
ties can be purchased, and in America 
there are several sources from which a 
good strain can be obtained in a mix¬ 
ture that will give good results. 
The seed can be sown in the open 
ground in mid-summer or early autumn 
as soon as ripe, and the young plants 
given slight protection during the winter. 
In early spring the young seedlings 
can be moved to their permanent posi¬ 
tion, and all will bloom by mid-summer. 
Most of them will produce a second 
crop of bloom, in September and Octo¬ 
ber, if the first stems are cut off as soon 
as the bloom is finished. 
From the best forms among your seed¬ 
lings select the ones from which you 
wish to save the seed for the following 
year. The earlier blooms usually pro¬ 
duce but little seed, and it is from the 
(Continued on page 98) 
