24 
House & Garden 
ural, not like the sylph who wears her best 
friend’s evening gown or the man who rents 
his dinner coat for a festive occasion. There 
should be no outward feeling of concealment, 
but a new purpose overshadowing the orig¬ 
inal intent. 
In concealing a door placed near a source of 
light one cannot avoid shortening the room by 
a dark, formless mass, and the transparent 
screen will achieve both the purpose of length¬ 
ening the vista and softening the light instead 
of shutting it out. 
One often finds in the 
layout of apartments the 
mantelpiece hugging a gap¬ 
ing doorway which sepa¬ 
rates two principal rooms. 
To fill this opening with a 
double door w T ould crowd 
the mantel and make it use¬ 
less for all purposes of com¬ 
fort and decoration. The 
screen now becomes a desir¬ 
able solution. It fills the 
gaps by swinging back 
diagonally and when half 
open forms a pleasant shel¬ 
tering angle around the fire¬ 
side. Transparency will 
lighten this treatment and 
act as a source of illumina¬ 
tion. 
Concealing a dark sec¬ 
tion of the room gives a 
welcome opportunity to the 
mirrored screen. It gathers 
sparks of light from every¬ 
To frame an entrance in 
a hallway one may use a 
pair of screens, as these 
two examples of black 
lacquer are used 
While tapestry is not un¬ 
usual for screens, the va¬ 
riety of these lies in the 
fact that such a perfect 
pair exists. The tapestry 
is Aubusson 
where, deepens the vista and 
brings happiness to a som¬ 
bre corner. Its brilliant pur¬ 
pose makes you forget that 
you are not to search be¬ 
hind its folds. It functions 
admirably as an agent of 
concealment and intrinsic 
decoration. 
When the unrelenting 
mind of the Giantbuilder 
has forced you into a room 
of complex proportions 
shaped or panelled for the 
comfort of the steamfitter or 
the fire department, and the 
high costs of today prevent 
a radical change, the wise 
decorator will prescribe 
screens to give a semblance 
of balanced harmony and 
entertainment and thus suc¬ 
ceed in concealing the 
fundamental discomforts of 
the room. 
The dining room screen, by far the most 
popularly known of the species, should be 
avoided although it has become a household 
recipe like the hall chair and the piano cover. 
One may put up with the mysterious goings on 
behind its hinge folds during one’s repasts be¬ 
cause some good must come of the hidden com- 
(Left) Among the screens adorning the 
London house of Mrs. Herbert Asquith 
is this fourfold gesso design after the 
manner of Daniel Marot 
