60 
House & Garden 
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jMany delightful interiors owe their chief 
charm to the unconventional character of 
their appointments. 
J"|T An exquisitely decorated console cabinet 
jI surmounted by a delicately carved 
mirror, for example, cannot fail to infuse 
either a Living Room or Hall with a 
distinction which the conventional table 
could not possibly impart. By the same 
token, all the rooms are susceptible to 
unusual treatment, sustaining, withal, 
perfect harmony. 
tfjT This suggestion may be carried to 
uJ successful conclusion by recourse to 
the faithful Reproductions of early cabinet¬ 
making on view in these Galleries. Here 
are available, well within a moderate cost, 
a profusion of occasional pieces and groups 
of Furniture, as well as the Decorative 
Objects and Oriental Rugs essential to the 
completion of any well-considered scheme. 
Suggestions may be gained from de luxe prints of 
interesting interiors, sent gratis upon request. 
Grand Rapids Rirniture Company 
INCORPORATED 
34-36 West 32- Sireet 
New\ork City 
Oriental Papers for Occidental Walls 
By COSTEN FITZ-GIBBON 
W ITH the exception of Japanese 
grass cloth, which has achieved 
enough popularity to call forth less ex¬ 
pensive imitations or substitutes, Orien¬ 
tal wall coverings have not received the 
attention to which their decorative merit 
entitles them. The Chinese silver and 
gold papers, it is true, have been em¬ 
ployed to some extent by a few discern¬ 
ing decorators, but most of those who 
might naturally be expected to appre¬ 
ciate them have passed them by either 
because they did not quite understand 
how to use them or else because they 
feared to try what seemed to them an 
experiment whose practicability they 
doubted. As to the divers other Oriental 
papers available—not made specifically 
for this purpose, indeed, but readily 
adaptable to it—comparatively few per¬ 
sons are aware of even their existence. 
The Roles of Wall Paper 
Now a wall paper, as all will agree, 
should be one or the other of two things 
—either a decoration in itself or else a 
background. In the latter case it is de¬ 
sirable that the paper be not only a 
background but a foil as well, and a foil 
in a dual role calculated to set off both 
the contour and the color of objects 
placed against it. The Oriental papers 
are peculiarly rich in the second ca¬ 
pacity, that is as backgrounds and foils, 
and some few of them, such as the Chi¬ 
nese figured silver paper illustrated, ac¬ 
ceptably fulfill requirements as either 
decorations or backgrounds, a rather un¬ 
usual qualification for wall papers. All 
of the Oriental papers, with few excep¬ 
tions, are quiet and refined, and every 
one of them is thoroughly manageable if 
treated with a little understanding. As 
backgrounds or foils, the properties of a 
number of the Chinese and Japanese 
papers seem intangible and elusive when 
one tries to analyze them, and yet they 
possess certain subtle qualities of color 
and texture that create an atmosphere 
which cannot fail to impress anyone who 
is not impervious to such influences. 
The coloring of all the papers, 
whether they be subdued and neutral so 
as to render them ideal backgrounds or 
whether they be in a more positive and 
brilliant key, is invariably possessed of 
that peculiarly mellow and vital tone 
quality that stamps the products of 
Oriental craftsmen and artists and pro¬ 
ceeds, doubtless, from an unerring color 
instinct born of centuries upon centuries 
of mature hereditary experience and 
scrupulous repetition. This characteris¬ 
tic mellowness accounts for the facility 
with which many of their colors may be 
(Continued on page 62) 
Japanese Kuro paper; salmon 
colored; Crinkled, with lustrous 
sheen. II/ 2 " x 17*4". Same 
in light blue and sage green 
A Chinese paper with rough 
corded surface not unlike a 
piece of heavy cloth. Color is 
light yellowish brown 
