The best designers of modern painted furniture are partly responsible for the revived interest in both Empire and Directoire. From their reproductions of the beautiful simple outlines, we, as a people, are once more beginning to feel line and to recognise it as an intrinsic part of beauty.
PLATE XXI
A Victorian group in a small portion of a very large parlour, 70 x 40 feet, one of the few remaining, if not the last, of the old Victorian mansions in New York City, very interesting as a specimen of the most elegant style of furnishing in the first half of the nineteenth century.
We would call attention to the heavy moulding of ceilings, the walls painted in panels (painted panels or wall paper to represent panels, is a Victorian hallmark), beautifully hand-carved woodwork, elaboration of design and colon carpet, woven in one piece for the room; in fact the characteristic richness of elaboration everywhere: Pictures in gilded carved frames, hung on double silk cords with tassels, heavily carved furniture made in England, showing fruits, flowers and medallion heads, and a similar elaboration and combination of flora and figures on bronze gas fixtures.
Heavy curtains of satin damask hung at the windows, held back by great cords and tassels, from enormous brass cornices in the form of gigantic flowers.
Also of the period is an immense glass case of stuffed birds, standing in the corner of the large dining-room. This interior was at the height of its glory at the time of the Civil War, and one is told of wonderful parties when the uniforms of the Northern officers decorated the stately rooms and large shaded gardens adjoining the house.
As things go in New York it may be but a matter of months before this picturesque landmark is swept away by relentless Progress.