COLLECTING PORTRAIT 
CHINA 
»0)M1^\NY 
MANUFACTURERS AND IMPORTERS 
DECORATIVE FURNITURE ~ ART OBJECTS 
NEW 'ITJRK 
Showrooms: East J2nd Street 
wsssns^^im 
Early ijth Century English Oak Court-Cupboard, 
by Kensington 
With characteristic tenacity the English crafts¬ 
man clung for a long period to the traditions 
fostered by the guilds in Gothic times. Ev^en in 
the 17th Century his work possessed an ex¬ 
traordinary individuality, and it is this quality, 
combined with great “livableness,” that gives 
to English furniture of this period its enduring 
hold on the public fancy. 
Because of the old-time hand processes of the 
Kensington craftsmen, Kensington reproductions 
of this furniture retain the character and the 
decorative quality that are the charm of the old 
work. 
Kensington Furniture is made 
in all the decorative styles ap¬ 
propriate for American homes. 
The purchase of Ken¬ 
sington Furniture may 
be arranged through 
your decorator or 
furniture dealer. 
Write for illustrated 
booklet H and pam¬ 
phlet, ^‘How Kett- 
sington Furniture 
May Be Purchased." 
{Continued from page 98 ) 
The English potters did not overlook this 
golden opportunity to perpetuate Lafay¬ 
ette’s progress by means of Lafayette 
plates and American purses were more 
than ready to buy everything of the sort 
which the American merchants imported. 
One may recall that when Lafayette vis¬ 
ited West Point a platter of Staffordshire 
blue, bearing as its decoration a View of 
West Point, was placed on his table. 
Before leaving America Lafayette had 
visited towns and cities in some twenty- 
four states in the Union, but it is not re¬ 
corded that any of them adorned their 
festive tables with plates projecting their 
hero’s physiognomy, although it is more 
than probable that Washington and 
Franklin and other American hero por¬ 
trait plates adorned the tables which 
Lafayette honored. 
Coincident with Lafayette’s visit was 
the opening of the Erie Canal, and be¬ 
tween the Lafayette receptions and the 
Erie Canal celebrations hospitable and 
ingenious America found herself almost 
entirely given up to holiday doings. What 
the Staffordshire potters did for Lafay¬ 
ette’s fame they also did for the Erie 
Canal’s. Immediately plates with Canal 
scenes and portraits of Washington, Jef¬ 
ferson, Lafayette and Clinton in goodly 
companionship appeared in the cargoes 
of merchant ships from England and need¬ 
less to say they sold like hot cakes. One 
of the most interesting of the Canal plates 
is the Clinton “eulogy” plate bearing 
the following inscription: “The Grand 
Erie Canal, a splendid monument of the 
enterprise and resources of the State of 
New York, indebted for its early com¬ 
mencement and rapid completion to the 
active energies, preeminent talents and 
enlightened policy of De Witt Clinton, 
late Governor of the State.” These 
plates can hardly have appeared on the 
tables of those of Clinton’s contempo¬ 
raries who insisted that the Canal was 
nothing more than a big ditch which 
would be filled with the tears of posterity! 
One of the most interesting plates to bear 
Clinton’s portrait is that from R. Steven¬ 
son and William’s pottery. This is deco¬ 
rated with a fine view of St. Paul’s Chapel. 
The Log Cabin Campaign of 1840 
again furnished the Staffordshire potter 
with an inspiration. John Tams soon 
brought out his William Henry Harrison 
plate and his Henry Cla> plate. Thence 
onward souvenir portrait plates of Eng¬ 
lish and American manufacture as well 
maintained a widespread popularity. 
Among the later-day souvenir portrait 
plates with American subjects are those of 
presidential candidates, of presidents, 
statesmen, literary and other celebrities. 
We have Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, 
and Roosevelt plates among others. 
Then there is a very interesting William 
Penn portrait plate made by the Mercer 
Pottery Company in 1901, for the Penn¬ 
sylvania Society of New York. Following 
the Spanish War many potters brought 
forth portrait plates depicting American 
heroes, and here it should be recorded 
that a plate was then issued to commem¬ 
orate the memory of the unknown sol¬ 
diers who had fallen in battle. 
The collector of old china who turns 
attention to such an inviting special field 
as portrait plates will be well rewarded by 
the pleasure derived from a hobby of the 
sort. The literature of the old Stafford¬ 
shire wares is rich in allusion to plates 
with American portraits, and such books 
as Barber’s “Anglo-American Pottery”, 
N. Hudson Moore’s “The Old China 
Book”, Prime’s “Pottery and Porce¬ 
lain”, W. P. Jerrds’s “A Pottery Primer”, 
S. Shaw’s “History of Staffordshire Pot¬ 
teries”, Arthur Hayden’s “Chats on Old 
Earthenware” give much detailed infor¬ 
mation which the collector will wish to 
consult. Although historical plates of the 
finer sort are by no means common, they 
are still to be had and the collector turn¬ 
ing to them now for the first time may still 
hope to gather a sufficient number with¬ 
out undue discouragement. 
THE TRADITION OF KIRMAN RUGS 
{Continued from page 87 ) 
order to mitigate this hardness, a feature 
which is shared by no other Eastern rug. 
For all its hardness and durability the 
Kirman is not heavy in weight: no rug is 
more prized, but as the making is ex¬ 
tremely tedious and slow, the cost is 
necessarily high. 
Of the most ancient Kirman fabrics, 
but few have survived to show the pat¬ 
terns and colors of the early chef d’ 
oeuvres. These lovely pieces were nearly 
all made for the South Persian IMosques, 
and it is only within comparatively recent 
years that specimens have reached Europe 
at all. Even the tattered fragments, for 
which dealers in the Constantinople 
bazaars used to ask such exorbitant 
prices, are no more to be had. Still from 
what has been saved and collected, a good 
idea of the patterns can be formed. As in 
most Persian rugs the flowery devices 
prevail; but the Kirman designer has none 
of the Arab scruples about reproducing 
living forms. Birds, animals, even human 
beings, are incorporated in many of the 
rugs and carpets. One curious fragment of 
high antiquity has a red field dotted over 
with the detached heads of all manner of 
beasts, cut off at the neck, and ending in 
a cornet. The Tree of Life appears with 
fruit of various kinds hanging from the 
branches, and the small birds in the 
border each full of symbolic meanings. 
The Knop and flower pattern is seen, and 
there are representations of native 
Persian flowers: violet, anemone, pink, 
crocus, sunflower, cypress, and rose, above 
all the rose. 
About the vear 1600 the idea was intro¬ 
duced (probably from India) of enclosing 
the flower devices in a kind of arabesque 
framework, repeated regularly all over 
the field. The Kirman designer took very 
kindly to this frame, but as time wfnt on 
its elaborate ornateness decreased and 
settled down, towards the end of the 17th 
Centur>', into a rhomboidal square more 
or less adorned. This framework, in one 
form or another, appears in a great many 
Kirmans of various periods. Sometimes 
immensely elongated and serrated leaf- 
forms are used to surround the little 
flower-devices, and except on the Kirmans 
these long pointed leaf shapes are rarely 
seen. 
Passing bj^ almost imperceptible de¬ 
grees the rugs of ancient Kirman lead on 
to and blend with those of mere recent 
date and, as ever, we And the rose para¬ 
mount among flowers. In Kirman roses 
flourish, they are cultivated for attar, 
and have always been woven mto the rugs 
and carpets. One typical Kirman design 
consists of a massed arrangement of red 
roses drawn in perspective with such 
minute attention to nature’s detail that 
one cannot call them “conventional” in 
the sense of most Persian flower drawing. 
The curv'ed petals are shaded, each blos¬ 
som, every stem, stands out in relief in a 
way that is rarely seen elsewhere. These 
red roses are arranged as bouquets, in 
gorgeous blue vases of antique shape. 
Two or three full blowm blossoms stand 
upright on their long stems, set about with 
{Continued on page 102 ) 
