And so in building the modern Colonial home we find ourselves ever going back to study the creations of the master builders of provincial times in America, when fireplaces meant even more than they do to-day, and finding in their achievements ideas and inspiration of great beauty and practical value. The neighborhood of Philadelphia is as rich in its collection of fine old mantels and chimney pieces as in its splendid interior woodwork generally. Like the latter they are for the most part of the early Georgian period, mostly chimney pieces, many without shelves, and usually somewhat heavy in scale and detail.
As in other important architectural features the development of mantels and chimney pieces in America followed to a degree the prevailing mode in the mother country. For many years after the Italian classic orders were brought to England by Inigo Jones, early in the seventeenth century, chimney pieces usually consisted merely of a mantel shelf and classic architraves or bolection moldings about the fireplace opening, the chimney breast above being paneled like the rest of the room. Toward the end of that century, and for several decades following, the shelf was omitted and the paneling on the chimney breast took the form of two[172] horizontally disposed oblongs, the upper broader than the lower.
Such an arrangement in its simplest form is to be seen in the great hall at Stenton, where a fireplace is located across one corner. The elliptical arch of the white pilastered brickwork and the height of the horizontal architrave above this arch impart a touch of quaint distinction. One notices with admiration the beautiful brass andirons and fire set, and with interest the floreated cast-iron fireback.
Going to the other extreme we find in the parlor at Whitby Hall a magnificently ornate example of the chimney piece without a mantel shelf which, as in many Colonial houses, has been made the central feature of one side of the room, symmetrically arranged and architecturally treated with wood paneling throughout. A heavy cornice with prominent double denticulated string course or crenelated molding runs entirely around the room, tying the fireplace end of the room into the general scheme. The chimney piece projects slightly, lending greater emphasis, and at each side the wall space is given over to high round-topped double doors of closets divided into upper and lower parts, beautifully flush-paneled and hung with quaint iron H hinges. Like those of the other doors and windows, the casings are of architrave pattern and in the center of the round arch is a keystone-shaped ornament hand-tooled in wood. The fireplace opening is faced[173] beautifully with cut black marble brought from Scotland and outlined with a nicely chiseled ovolo molding in wood similar to the familiar egg and dart pattern, but incorporating the richer Lesbian leaf instead of the dart, a closely related reed-like motive replacing the conventional bead and reel. Two handsomely carved consoles resting on the fillet of this ovolo molding support the superb molded panel of the overmantel some three by five feet, in which to this day not a joint is to be seen. A band of exquisite floreated carving in high relief fills the long, narrow, horizontal panel between the consoles. The precision of the tooling in this intricate tracery is indeed remarkable. Nicely worked but simple parallel moldings with the favorite Grecian fret sharply delineated between them and Lesbian leaf ornaments in the square projections at the corners compose a frame of exceptional grace of detail and proportion. Rarely is an ensemble so elaborate accompanied by such a marked degree of good taste and restraint.
In the great chamber on the second floor, which is believed to have been the boudoir of the mistress of Mount Vernon, there is a very similar, though even more elaborate, architectural treatment of the fireplace and of the room. Closets with round-topped doors again occupy the spaces each side of the fireplace; the cornice surrounding the entire room with its conspicuous Grecian fret motive [174] again ties the paneled end of the room into the general scheme, and in this instance the relation is made closer by the paneled wainscot which is carried about all four walls. In this wainscot two panel sections under each closet are hung as double doors opening into small supplementary closets. Owing to the loftiness of the room, the closet doors have been elaborated by ornate broken pedimental heads repeating the cornice on a smaller scale, and which are supported by paneled pilasters and large consoles superbly carved with an acanthus leaf decoration.
Beautiful as these doorways are in themselves, they are so much heavier in treatment than the overmantel as to detract from it; they do not occupy an unobtrusive subordinate position, as do the closet doors of the parlor at Whitby Hall. Moreover, the trim of each door occupies such a breadth of wall space that the fireplace and overmantel are narrowed, the latter taking the form of a vertical rather than a horizontal oblong. In fact, the dominant lines throughout are here vertical as contrasted with the dominant horizontal lines at Whitby Hall. The loftiness and stateliness of the room are thereby emphasized, but the effect is less restful.
