14 
HO USE & GARDEN 
was turned to simulate Bamboo 
and further adorned with floral 
designs in gold 
out of the day with an extraordi¬ 
nary effect? 
If you must use these newest 
papers and hanging fabrics with 
their strong notes of clear color, 
insist that there be some color 
relationship between them and 
the furniture. 
The kinds of furniture with 
which painted furniture can be 
successfully mixed are limited. 
One cannot mix it with mahog¬ 
any save by some such decora¬ 
tive tones suggested above, a 
combination that was popular in 
post-Colonial days, when our 
ancestors mixed the two, or save 
the furniture has the refined 
modeling and neutral colors that 
characterized the Sheraton paint¬ 
ed furniture. You cannot mix 
crude things with refined things and expect to get a harmony 
and livable whole. Painted furniture can be effectively mixed 
with willow, for willow polls and reeds, it will be remembered, 
had their place in the past in the construction of both farm¬ 
house and painted furniture. 
In the use of the finer sorts of painted furniture the tradition 
again must be consulted. It was given a fine environment and 
a setting that was distinctly formal. The background was 
always highly painted and 
decorated. Some of the fur¬ 
niture shown on these pages 
is of that type. At a glance 
one would know that it de¬ 
serves the well appointed 
bedroom or living-room. 
Let us take, for example, 
the elaborate console cabinets 
and pier tables of Adam 
provenance, upon which so 
much expense and exquisite 
care were freely lavished, 
both in the preparation of 
the ground color and the 
execution of the devices for 
further embellishment. The 
Eighteenth Century cabinet 
designers and makers clearly 
recognized the beauty and 
decorative value of the 
Belonging with the settee 
shown below and the chair 
shown opposite the three 
would make an excellent 
grouping 
ground work alone quite apart 
from additional devices. In¬ 
stance the charming Vernis- 
Martin tables and consoles in 
apple green or green grey which 
were purposely left void of any 
supplementary adornment to 
their fascinating color and lus¬ 
trous surface than the brass or 
ormolu bandings and mounts 
with which they were finished. 
It is not surprising, therefore, 
that infinite pains were taken 
with the preparation of the 
ground color for Adam painted 
furniture. Indeed, it was neces¬ 
sary that this should be so, for 
the painted pieces were truly fur¬ 
niture gems, used sparingly as 
gems should be, in well-consid¬ 
ered formal settings. The ef¬ 
fectiveness of a paneled Adam drawing-room of formal and 
studiously symmetrical proportions, finished in white, grey, 
pale lavender or some other delicate tone, with gracefully 
moulded compo-ceiling embossings, ornate mantels and chastely 
wrought woodwork, was materially enhanced by a painted 
console cabinet, enriched by the handiwork of Angelica Kauff¬ 
man or Cipriani, set between two windows or between two 
doorways. On the other hand, the console cabinet itself de¬ 
manded just such a setting 
as that for which it was de¬ 
signed. 
In the same way we must 
remember the character of 
the settings in which the 
painted furniture of Hepple- 
white or Sheraton pattern 
was placed, although the 
painted pieces of these mas¬ 
ters were less exacting in 
their requirements than the 
painted furniture made for 
the Brothers Adam. When 
using chairs and sofas of 
Louis Quinze type, it is 
well to keep before the 
mind’s eye a picture of the 
delicately colored setting 
which composed their orig¬ 
inal environment. 
The medallion on the back 
slat is characteristic of the 
French and Italian mas¬ 
ters who first painted fur¬ 
niture 
Many reproduc¬ 
tions of the old 
models lack 
only age to 
make them per¬ 
fect. This re¬ 
production i n 
satinwood with 
painted panels 
and floral dec¬ 
orations is a 
typical product 
of the present 
vogue for 
painted furni¬ 
ture 
