June, 1921 
39 
COLLECTING OLD WHITE FOR DECORATION 
In China or Furniture , Paintings or Curtains, the Ivory of Age 
Lends a Fascination to the Modern Room 
RUBY ROSS GOODNOW 
A LOVE of old white things seems 
to be as old as romance, for on an 
ancient ivory coffret of the early 11th 
Century one finds this quaint and loving 
inscription: “It is more beautiful than 
a casket adorned with diamonds. It 
serves to contain spices, musk, camphor, 
and ambergris. There is nothing for me 
so admirable as the sight of it. It in¬ 
spires me with a constancy to support 
the troubles of my house.” What a com¬ 
forting discovery for one who covets old 
white things, and bewails her hunger for 
these admirable objects! 
I can’t remember how I began to col¬ 
lect old white things—I think by dream¬ 
ing over unattainable white treasures of 
other people, for certainly my first loves 
were priceless things like old Chinese 
porcelains, and ivories, and pearl-broi- 
ln using white, it should be disposed 
about a room sparingly lest its value 
be lost by too great repetition. In 
this living room corner the desired 
effect is obtained by the small white 
objects set at distances apart 
dered satins, and Whistler paintings. 
And when once your eye is trained to 
the appreciation of a special quality, that 
quality becomes the outstanding thing in 
any composition. An old yellow silk- 
hung chamber where a great white lac¬ 
quered bed held the place of honor, like 
a fine lady in a fine room, always seemed 
to me the room of the white bed, rather 
than the room of the yellow silk. My 
Aubusson carpet—a delicate pale colored 
thing, its mauve field irregularly spotted 
with white stars, its great circular white 
medallion holding a violet and pink vase 
—seems to me not the rug of the vase,^ 
but the rug of the white stars. One sees 
what one likes to see in objects of art, and 
perhaps some of my choicest white loves 
might be to you anything but white. 
(Continued on page 82) 
(Below) A white bedroom built around 
an old Italian jour-poster has fascin¬ 
ating touches of white—lyre fixtures 
strung with pearls instead of crystals, 
white satin curtains at the windows 
hung over deep peach-pink taffeta 
If' • . 
1 & 1 \ lL 
Karting 
