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House & Garden 
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“TT ?he Furniture which graces the well- 
appointed American home of today 
echoes a silent yet eloquent tribute to the 
cabinetmakers of olden times. 
tffl Those original pieces which happily 
have survived the passing of centuries 
furnish inspiration for such admirable 
adaptations as may be found in the Twelve 
Galleries of this establishment. 
tfTT Here one may acquire, within a modest 
expenditure, groups and single pieces 
for the formal as well as informal rooms 
— Furniture which will impart to its 
surroundings decorative distinction, fulfilling 
withal the function of utility so often absent 
in the “antique.” 
Here also are available hand-wrought 
facsimiles of rare old Furniture, em¬ 
bodying the very spirit of those leisurely 
days when the master carver took rank with 
the painter, the sculptor and the architect. 
Suggestions may be gained from de luxe prints 
of charming interiors, sent grrlis upon request 
Villi ' ^eun[fcit'k(5alfet’tc6 
Grand Rapids Fhrniture Company 
INCORPORATED 
34~36 West 32 ~ Street 
New York City 
Baroque — William 
and Mary — small, 
square, walnut 
jrame with seaweed 
marqueterie. Lehne 
Mirrors and Mirror Frames in Three Centuries 
(Continued from page 43) 
finely figured walnut veneer or of laquer 
and gold. Oftentimes the upper section 
of the glass was embellished with some 
simple and shallow-cut device. Another 
ornamentation was to paint on the un¬ 
der side in reverse, Chinese figure, pa¬ 
goda, and tree and bird devices in vivid 
colors. This usage continued till after 
the middle of the 18th Century. It was 
also a common practice to make the 
frame enclose two areas, the lower and 
large section being for the mirror, while 
the upper section was reserved for a 
decorative painting. 
Influence of Large Glass 
Once the large glass was available in 
quantity, the decorator was not slow to 
use it to full purpose and empanel it in 
walls. A contemporary description of 
the dining-room at Chatsworth tells us 
that at one end was “a large door all 
of Looking glasse in great panells all 
diamond Cutt. This opposite to ye 
doores that runs into ye drawing roome 
and bed chamber and Closet so it shows 
ye roomes to Look all double. Ye 
Dutchess’s Closet is wanscoated with 
ye hollow burnt japan, and at Each 
corner are peers of Looking glass. In 
all ye windows ye Squares of glass are 
so large and good they cost 10s. a pan- 
nell.” 
“Diamond Cutt” means the shallow 
cutting of leaves, flowers, scrolls, stars, 
sun rays and similar devices with which 
the heads of mirrors were adorned. 
From empaneling mirrors in walls and 
doors it was only one remove to em¬ 
paneling them in cabinetwork, and from 
the last quarter of the 17th Century on¬ 
ward this became a common and highly 
effective practice. 
The early Georgian mirror frame, 
walnut veneered and parcel gilt or 
Late i8th Century 
gilt with painted 
panel. Lehne 
Rococo — Spanish painted 
and parcel gilt frame. C. M. 
Traver Co. 
wrought with gesso relief' and wholly 
gilt, took on, as the century advanced, 
a more and more architectural charac¬ 
ter with pediments, cornices and mould¬ 
ings that echoed exactly the overdoor 
carvings or the arrestings upon “archi¬ 
tects’ furniture” of contemporary de¬ 
sign. 
The same sort of architectural pomp 
in miniature was one of the chief char¬ 
acteristics of French mirror frames dur¬ 
ing the reign of Louis XIV, gilt folia¬ 
tions, diapered flat surfaces, perfora¬ 
tions, shell motifs and masques all being 
subservient to the general architectural 
spirit of the composition. Mirror glass 
of good size was successfully made in 
France from 1665 onward. Glass frames 
also were used, some of those of vari¬ 
colored glass approximating the prod¬ 
ucts of Venetian workshops. 
In Italy and Spain, although the mir¬ 
ror frames all during the period were 
rich and beautiful, there was scarcely 
so wide a diversity of forms as in Eng¬ 
land. Many of the frames closely re¬ 
sembled resplendent picture frames with 
their bold and mellow carving gilt, and 
the intervening spaces polychromed. 
There were likewise glass frames, not 
usually of any great size, with an out¬ 
ward bevel painted and gilt or silvered 
in reverse. Then, too, there were the 
glass Venetian frames made of either 
large pieces or of a number of small 
piece of multi-colored glass. Sometimes 
a portion of the mirror was ornamented 
either with etching or with intaglio cut¬ 
ting in reverse. Then, also, in both 
Spain and Italy, were to be found the 
native versions of what we should call 
the tall Queen Anne forms. 
The Rococo Mode 
A singular unanimity of design seems 
to have characterized mirror frames in 
the period of Rococo influence, both in 
England and on the Continent, with a 
single exception. That exception was 
the Anglo-Chinese phase of which Chip- 
(Continued on page 52) 
