42 
House & Garden 
REVIVING THE L A V A B O 
This Convenient Adjunct to Renaissance Houses Lends Itself Admirably 
to the Modern Dining Room 
COSTEN FITZ-GIBBON 
A LAVABO, as the word itself in¬ 
dicates, has to do with washing. 
It was originally a washing ac¬ 
cessory employed in ecclesiastical usage. 
Afterwards it was adopted as a polite 
and convenient adjunct in the houses of 
the well-to-do, and during the later Mid¬ 
dle Ages, the Renaissance and, indeed, 
to some extent even as recently as the 
18th Century, in Italy, France and Spain 
especially, but elsewhere also, it formed 
a part of the equipment in whatever 
apartment meals were ordinarily eaten. 
Flistorically it may be regarded as a 
relic of the time when table parapher¬ 
nalia were not so highly developed and 
minutely specialized as they are now, 
and when, in the accepted code of table 
manners, it was a polite and grateful 
thing to lave one’s fingers before sitting 
down to meat and a necessity to do so 
after rising from the table. Commonly 
an object of grace and elegance in itself, 
it was the forerunner of two utilitarian 
but unpretty modern articles—the sta¬ 
tionary washstand and the water cooler. 
Without venturing to insinuate that 
modern society needs to bathe before sit¬ 
ting down to meals, it is not amiss to 
suggest that the lavabo might be restored 
to its ancient place in our present-day 
A bold design is afforded by this 
16 th Century Tuscan lavabo in a 
semi-circular niche with coved scal¬ 
lop shell head and vase-shaped basin 
dining rooms as a feature of both decora¬ 
tive interest and practical utility com¬ 
bined. As a means of bringing running 
water into the dining, room, w'hether the 
water be previously cooled for drinking 
purposes or whether it be used only for 
filling urns, percolators and finger bowls, 
the presence of the lavabo is justified 
from the utilitarian point of view. It is 
with its character as a feature of decora¬ 
tive interest, however, that we are here 
chiefly concerned. 
The lavabo was of two sorts, the fixed 
and the portable. One of the illustra¬ 
tions shows a 15th Century lavabo still 
in use in the dining room of a famous 
Florentine villa. The lavabo niche, re¬ 
cessed about 9" or 10" into the wall, is 
framed within pilasters and an entabla¬ 
ture of exquisitely carved stone—the gray 
pietra serena quarried from the surround¬ 
ing hills—wrought in a style that 
strongly suggests the work of Mino da 
Fiesole or some of his pupils. 
A square of white marble sculptured 
in crisp relief, and let into the wall at the 
back of the niche, contains the faucet 
which issues directly from the end of a 
wine cask presided over by two frisking 
winged cherubs carrying chaplets of roses. 
(Continued on page 66) 
Although now sealed up, this scal¬ 
lop shell Tuscan lavabo still serves 
excellently as a niche. The purity 
of its design deserves examination 
This lavabo of the 15th Century is 
still in use in a Florentine villa. The 
frame and faucet surround are ex¬ 
quisitely carved 
This three-deck lavabo is Venetian 
Gothic in design. The water is 
poured in a top reservoir and drawn 
through faucets 
