52 
House & Garden 
T HE quaint charm of this four 
piece Windsor Bedroom Suite 
is thoroughly characteristic of the 
furniture which discerning people 
so readily identify. And like all 
Hathaway furniture, its owner¬ 
ship is well within the limits of 
common-sense economy. 
The suite is available in three dif¬ 
ferent finishes—a soft two-tone 
ivory enamel, a delicate mauve 
gray, or plain mahogany—and, in 
any finish, the price of the four 
pieces illustrated is $225. 
W.J I. Hath away Company 
62 West45^ Street Nemlfork 
1 
Harmony in Furniture Combinations 
(Continued from page 28) 
heavily constructed, straight lined and 
virile ornamented pieces of Louis XIV, 
the Italian and Spanish Renaissance, 
Gothic, Elizabethan and Jacobean and 
its pitiable clod of a stepson, American 
Mission. The mixing of these periods 
(except the last mentioned) requires 
discrimination. In these instances the 
purpose is contrast. A severe Italian 
credence can be delightfully contrasted 
with a Venetian painted chair of the 
Louis XV variety, with curved lines and 
soft, dull enamel finish and decorations. 
But a satinwood chair of Hepplewhite 
design does not mix with a Louis XIV 
chair; one is pompous and elaborate 
and the other refined and delicate. In 
combining contrasts, then, the point 
should be that one relies upon severity 
of line, the plain surface of the wood, 
the perfection of proportion to make it¬ 
self felt; the other piece upon its grace¬ 
fulness of line, its delicate decorations 
and the feeling of unsuspected rhythm 
in its turning. 
Two elaborate things of too varied 
proportions cannot combine. Against 
the simple must be set the delicate, 
against the undecorated the decorated. 
Where one piece depends for its values 
upon the color of the wood, the other 
must depend on its color of pigment. 
The use of painted furniture in a 
room cannot be too highly recommended. 
But by painted furniture I do not'mean 
using peasant pieces or similar Ameri¬ 
can modes in a room with delicate furni¬ 
ture of wood finishes; I mean the pieces 
of French, Italian or perhaps English 
design which are of graceful line and 
usually have carved ornamentation. 
Combining Different Woods 
The combinations of different woods 
is an everyday problem. We have on 
hand, for example, several pieces of 
mahogany, but we do not wish to create 
a new living room in mahogany; we’re 
tired of mahogany, perhaps, and wish 
to buy new pieces. In such instances 
I generally advise putting the mahogany 
pieces upstairs in bedrooms—the ever¬ 
present Empire sofa making an excellent 
piece for an upstairs hall—and beginning 
afresh downstairs with Italian walnut, 
which seems to be the wood of the day, 
for the living room, or oak, darkly 
stained, well waxed and antiqued, oak 
of the Italian or English type. If, how¬ 
ever, the mahogany must remain, there 
are two solutions: combine painted fur¬ 
niture, in soft greens, well antiqued, or 
soft deep creams and blues, not too deli¬ 
cate but of a tone which looks well with 
the mahogany. In this way we have re¬ 
freshed our room by the combination. 
In a room with mahogany and gray 
walls, use some soft green painted furni¬ 
ture with a gray carpet and a broad 
striped linen of green and gray and 
green taffeta undercurtains. This has 
the chaste character of the mahogany 
while color and feeling have been in¬ 
troduced. 
The other alternative is to have ma¬ 
hogany scraped and stained to the brown 
of walnut. Then supply new pieces in 
walnut. Have one small table or a 
workstand or a small chair with dull 
gold lines that enrich and set off the 
wood. Being in a small piece, they will 
not be too “dressy.” 
Oak and mahogany do not mix either 
in color or grain, since the textures are 
too varied. Walnut does not mix suc¬ 
cessfully with mahogany, but by stain¬ 
ing it can be made to combine, since 
the grain is similar. 
Rosewood, mahogany and a few 
painted pieces combine nicely. Also do 
black and blue lacquer. Red lacquer 
looks better with mahogany or oak. 
The Uses of Wicker 
The subject of combining wicker is 
quite important. Wicker is the chief 
inexpensive “filler in.” It may be com¬ 
bined with any of the coarser grained 
woods, but it is most unsuitable with 
fine mahogany or any furniture of the 
more delicate periods. Painted furni¬ 
ture and wicker go well together when 
the former has a simple character with¬ 
out any period pretentions. Much has 
to do with the way tire wicker is treated. 
Well enameled in very dark tones, rather 
compactly woven, and cushioned in ve¬ 
lour or some plain, richly toned fabric, 
wicker may be combined—not ideally 
but adequately—with walnut or oak in 
a living room. Left unstained, how¬ 
ever, upholstered in a cheap, gaudy cre¬ 
tonne and put into a living room, it 
spoils both the room and loses value 
itself. The chief claim for wicker is 
its cheapness and adaptability. Today, 
in its unfinished state, a porch chair; 
tomorrow, in its enameled glory, in the 
living room ; next week, somewhat shab¬ 
bier, in the guest room; and finally, as 
full of squeaks and wabbles as an old 
man, it finds it way up to the playroom! 
The Bookplates of Book Lovers 
(Continued from page 19) 
some intimate connection with his per¬ 
sonal development and it thus deserves 
to be preserved as a human document. 
But there have been millions of book¬ 
plates engraved and printed since the 
necessity for them and their vogue ap¬ 
peared. The provident book collector 
or book owner naturally had many more 
copies of his bookplate printed and en¬ 
graved than found their way into books. 
It was so with the bookplates of Samuel 
Pepys and of Charles Dickens. Many 
of these have been preserved and have 
come into the hands of collectors and 
dealers in literary property. Now it is 
only within comparatively few years 
that collectors have turned their atten¬ 
tion to collecting bookplates. The 
hobby, once led forth and saddled, found 
many an eager rider, and to-day there 
are hundreds of collectors in America 
and Europe and many important ex 
libris societies; moreover, a number of 
publications are devoted solely to the 
subject of bookplates and their col¬ 
lectors. Nearly all of our great libraries 
have bookplate collections. The British 
Museum Print Room, for instance, con¬ 
tains one consisting of 34,468 ex libris, 
the bequest of Lord Franks. 
Heraldry in Design 
The revival of interest in the graphic 
arts which made itself manifest in the 
1890’s led to an interest on the part of 
book lovers to provide themselves with 
bookplates of a more attractive nature 
than heretofore they had concerned 
themselves with. In Europe heraldic 
engraving had more or less degenerated 
to insipidity, and the great demand for 
more spirited work which was brought 
about by bookmen produced such en¬ 
gravers cf bookplates as the late George 
W. Eve, who himself wrote: “Heraldry 
must be treated with the same consider¬ 
ation for tire ordinary principles of 
good design that would be applied to 
any other species of composition. It 
has too frequently been the custom to 
regard heraldry as something of so pro¬ 
foundly mysterious nature that it was 
thought to excuse poverty of invention, 
( Continued on page 54) 
