I[with cabriole legs, standing 
beneath an American Em¬ 
pire triple mirror with gilt 
frame, and an all-over up¬ 
holstered chair which might 
be of either British or 
American origin. At the 
other end of the room, at 
one side of the door, is a 
late 18th Century painted 
Venetian settee of marked 
Heppelwliite affinities, be¬ 
yond the door an uphol¬ 
stered chair of no particular 
national stamp, a low 
painted Venetian table, an¬ 
other Italian Heppelwliite 
painted chair, an Italian 
walnut secretary of Heppel- 
white relationship, an 
American Sheraton mahog¬ 
any hanging corner cup¬ 
board, and another Ameri¬ 
can Empire gilt-framed 
mirror. The painted Ital¬ 
ian pieces have polychrome 
decorations on a pale green 
ground. 
Unifying Influences 
This inventory sounds 
exceedingly heterogeneous 
and not altogether promis¬ 
ing. As a matter of fact, 
however, there are three 
factors that have contrib¬ 
uted to produce a very com¬ 
fortable sense of corporate 
unity, notwithstanding the 
very divers individual items 
in the ensemble. First of 
all, the room is large enough 
so that the objects can be 
kept sufficiently far apart to avoid 
any jangling conflict between utter¬ 
ly dissimilar pieces, conflict that 
closer proximity might precipitate. 
In the second place, there are certain 
points of similarity and contact be¬ 
tween some of the American an¬ 
tiques and some of the Italian pieces 
—notably between the mahogany . 
Heppelwhite armchair and the 
painted Italian chair of related de¬ 
sign—to serve as a unifying bond. 
It is largely due to the same spirit 
of design that simultaneously in¬ 
fluenced all the better furniture 
made on both sides of the Atlantic 
in the latter part of the 18th Cen¬ 
tury and created a certain family 
resemblance, making it easy to re¬ 
concile local differences. Thirdly, 
the uniformity of upholstery stuff 
—the ground is old blue with a 
fine light tan foliated figure—exerts 
a potent effect in tying things to¬ 
gether. The flower panels in uni¬ 
form frames of old dulled blue and 
gold might indeed be considered a 
fourth element in the production of 
unity. 
Two views of the drawing room show 
American and Italian pieces used together 
in perfect accord 
The Dining Room 
In the library the Ameri¬ 
can walnut Queen Anne low¬ 
boy, the comfortable uphol¬ 
stered sofa beside the fire¬ 
place, and the little walnut 
pedestal table with serpent’s- 
head feet are of distinctly 
American provenance, while 
the Empire mantel and the 
Empire mirror above it, 
though actually Italian, 
have so many American 
counterparts, that the tone 
of the room is thoroughly 
consistent. The unmistak¬ 
ably Italian sconces and the 
lamps made from old Ital¬ 
ian candlesticks add just 
enough of the Italian ele¬ 
ment to give a note of dis¬ 
tinction and piquancy. 
The dining room, save 
for the drop-leaf table of 
Queen Anne kinship, is al¬ 
together Sheratonesque. The 
sconce above the sideboard, 
though characteristically 
Italian, merely serves as a 
foil to emphasize more 
strongly the dominating 
Sheraton accent of the 
room’s composition. The 
ceiling is beamed and 
painted, like the ceilings in 
the drawing room and li¬ 
brary, but the tones and 
pattern are so subdued and 
unobtrusive that its effect is 
simply an influence of quiet 
enrichment. 
One of the bedrooms 
also illustrates the harmonious man¬ 
ner in which Italian and American 
antiques can be made to dwell to¬ 
gether. The dominant piece in the 
room is an Italian four-post bed. 
The bed itself is quite low and mas¬ 
sive and the posts rise high above it, 
deeply carved and with decorated 
terminals. In the same room are 
used pieces of the American Empire 
era. The bed has such strong affini¬ 
ties with the American Empire type 
that it accords admirably with the 
American pieces in the room. The 
mirrors are Italian, too. The walls 
and ceiling are plain. 
Throughout the whole house one 
perceives not only a sense of balance 
and discriminating restraint in com¬ 
position, but also finds justification 
for transplanting antiques that have 
proved their fitness as instruments 
of a pleasing cosmopolitanism in in¬ 
terior decoration. They have shown 
that American antiques in Italy need 
not be like fish out of water any 
more than well-bred and well-be¬ 
haved Americans are out of place in 
like surroundings. 
While the high-post bed is Italian it has 
strong affinities with the American Em¬ 
pire pieces 
