54 
House 
& 
Garden 
oAreYou 
Buying Your Plumbing on the 
Installment Plan ? 
Many people buy plumbing on the installment plan 
and never know it. The life of inferior plumbing 
material is actually determined before the plumber’s 
truck brings it to your house. Such fixtures will last 
just so long, and then shame of their appearance and 
realization of their sanitary uselessness force you to 
replace them. Then comes the second payment— 
the same price for the fixture, the same bill for 
plumber’s services. You come to realize how much 
better off you would have been to have originally 
insisted upon 
THE 
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THE TRENTON POTTERIES COMPANY 
TRENTON, NEW JERSEY, U. S. A. 
World’s largest makers of All-Clay Plumbing Fixtures 
Old English Interiors in American Homes 
(Continued from page 52) 
than the inheritor of the house, and 
would be taken down and set up else¬ 
where. Is there anything incongruous 
about it, then, when an American, an 
inheritor of the spirit and genius of old 
England, has it taken across the ocean 
and placed in his own house? 
This movable character of the panel¬ 
ing of the old English room accounts 
for the irregularity of some of the speci¬ 
mens, which forms part of their charm. 
Kinds of Paneling 
One of the most frequent and suc¬ 
cessful forms of panel decoration was 
that known as the linen-fold, which 
belongs really to the Gothic and Tudor 
periods. However, the wainscoting was 
sometimes removed from other and 
earlier buildings, and we find it handed 
on to Elizabethan and Stuart houses. 
The paneling most favored in the 16th 
and 17th Centuries consisted of a series 
of undecorated panels 9" or 10" wide 
and from 15" to 18" high, depending on 
the beauty of their wood only, and sur¬ 
rounded by molded framing. These 
panels made a perfect background for 
pictures, armor or any enriched furni¬ 
ture that was placed against them. This 
paneling contrasted pleasingly and rest- 
fully with the generously carved chim¬ 
ney pieces and doorways, and in no 
way interfered with the introduction of 
painted portraits or pictures. It was 
at this time that Dutch painting was 
introduced in England, and that Hol¬ 
bein came to paint the portraits of 
the nobility. . 
The Jacobean paneling that followed 
is distinguished by an increasing intrica¬ 
cy of framing and molding which was 
very often ingeniously introduced and 
varied with inlaid wood. 
With the coming of the Georges the 
treatment of small panels gave way to 
a much broader arrangement. The 
large panels became much wider and 
were generally divided by a dado rail 
at a distance of about 2' to 3' from the 
floor, while two or at most three ex¬ 
tended to the height of the room. The 
moldings, again, were much bolder, and 
instead of being merely sunk and 
scratched on the framing, they were 
now made to project. Enrichment in 
carving was treated in the same way, 
and instead of being flat in section and 
conventional in treatment, was high in 
relief and assumed a naturalistic form. 
Fruit, flowers and birds, arranged in 
swags and drops, apparently hung on 
the walls, and were carved with great 
boldness, delicate finish and strong re¬ 
lief. Naturally the reader, if he is 
familiar with decoration, will recall the 
name of Grinling Gibbons. 
And then, after its zenith, came the 
eclipse of the panel room and all that 
it stood for in decoration. 
The change began in the middle and 
latter part of the 18th Century. Wood 
paneling began to be superseded by plas¬ 
ter, and the walls were left unrelieved, 
and either painted or covered with some 
of the dainty figured silk now imported 
from France. Woodwork and other ob¬ 
jects became gilded, and silk damask 
was used to harmonize with it, applied 
in flat panels and surrounded by a 
carved and gilt wooden frame. And, 
as if to add ignominy to the fallen oak, 
there came, from France, wall paper 
in imitation of damask and velvet! Of 
course, wall paper had existed as far 
back as the 16th Century, but not in 
conflict with the noble oak in England’s 
mansions. 
Thus did English interiors lose their 
individuality. Much that was beautiful 
succeeded, it is true. The arts of China 
and Japan intervened, and implanted 
their stamp on the Louis XV style in 
France and the decorations of Chippen¬ 
dale in England. The phoenix and the 
dragon triumphed. Hardly a palace or 
a manor house in England or France 
lacked its Chinese room, with its painted 
or “japanned” lacquer walls. 
Then came the classic period, which 
invaded France with the Revolution 
and passed into the Empire, and which 
translated its influence to English art. 
This in turn was swallowed up in the 
banalities of the Victorian era, and all 
that remained of the art of interior 
decoration was the past’s marvelous be¬ 
quest. It is doubtful if English taste 
in furniture and decoration ever reached 
a lower ebb than in the middle of the 
19th Century. 
With such examples as these noble 
houses and their contents in their midst, 
it is, indeed, surprising how English 
taste should have sunk so low as we 
find it in the middle of the last century, 
and, indeed, even at the present time; 
and it may truly be said that a keener 
appreciation is shown in America for 
the best of decoration than in England. 
For American Homes 
For America has had its art awaken¬ 
ing, and it is founded on the best foun¬ 
dation in the world—an open mind. 
Americans are a people possessing in¬ 
dividuality and refinement, and the 
keenest and most sympathetic apprecia¬ 
tion of the beautiful, added to which is 
the fact that they show a feverish eager¬ 
ness to learn all that is to be known of 
good design when they are once con¬ 
vinced that they are in the hands of a 
capable teacher. 
The Country Auction Sale 
(Continued from page 33) 
powder would an old war horse. The 
instant prominence I attained as the 
colored person’s antagonist during our 
flier in high finance was disconcerting, 
indeed. I withdrew, quailing under her 
black and angry looks and shivering 
under the cold eye of the dealer who 
had come up at the end of this fiasco. 
She looked me over, superciliously, in 
the same manner as she had glanced at 
the broken-down sofa beyond me. 
It was with something akin to joy I 
watched the struggle between her and 
the Jewish dealer with the piece of 
molding in his pocket, for the posses¬ 
sion of the little gilt mirror. She let 
him have it with unexpected sudden¬ 
ness, and I knew its damaged condition 
had something to do with it. The 
opportunity to tell her where to find 
the missing piece of molding was gone 
in a second. I am wasting no grief over 
it. Later the lady snatched up, with 
rapid fire bids and a heavy pocketbook, 
most of the bits we had fixed our hearts 
upon, much to the evident surprise of 
the auctioneer and the crowd, to whom 
an old phonograph and the cheap 
jewelry had by far the stronger appeal. 
But it was all very well to say to 
ourselves, as we climbed into our little 
car, that things picked up at auctions 
often proved a costly mistake; we 
would still be on the hunt for more to 
pick. Since our imaginations ha'd be¬ 
come intrigued by household treasures 
with long histories, the mere hint of an 
auction would continue to draw us re¬ 
lentlessly to it again, even as it drew 
us from our Jersey suburb down to the 
little village that Penn had helped to 
found on his wise townstead plan, in 
the years when our country was so 
strangely new. 
