thing
satisfied the purchaser of so-called "artistic" products, whether of
decorative furniture, carpets, curtains or merely ornamental articles,
unless the design was "new." The natural result was the production either
of heavy and ugly, or flimsy and inappropriate furniture, which has been
condemned by every writer on the subject. In some of the designs selected
from the exhibits of '51 this desire to leave the beaten track of
conventionality will be evident: and for a considerable time after the
exhibition there is to be seen in our designs, the result of too many
opportunities for imitation, acting upon minds insufficiently trained to
exercise careful judgment and selection.

[Illustration: The Ellesmere Cabinet, In the Collection of the late Lady
Marian Alford.]

The custom of appropriate and harmonious treatment of interior decorations
and suitable furniture, seems to have been in a great measure abandoned
during the present century, owing perhaps to the indifference of
architects of the time to this subsidiary but necessary portion of their
work, or perhaps to a desire for economy, which preferred the cheapness of
painted and artificially grained pine-wood, with decorative effects
produced by wall papers, to the more solid but expensive though less
showy wood-panelling, architectural mouldings, well-made panelled doors
and chimney pieces, which one finds, down to quite the end of the last
century, even in houses of moderate rentals. Furniture therefore became
independent and "beginning to account herself an Art, transgressed her
limits" ... and "grew to the conceit that it could stand by itself, and,
as well as its betters, went a way of its own." [22] The interiors, handed
over from the builder, as it were, in blank, are filled up from the
upholsterer's store, the curiosity shop, and the auction room, while a
large contribution from the conservatory or the nearest florist gives the
finishing touch to a mixture, which characterizes the present taste for
furnishing a boudoir or a drawing room.

There is, of course, in very many cases an individuality gained by the
"omnium gatherum" of such a mode of furnishing. The cabinet which reminds
its owner of a tour in Italy, the quaint stool from Tangier, and the
embroidered piano cover from Spain, are to those who travel, pleasant
souvenirs; as are also the presents from friends (when they have taste and
judgment), the screens and flower-stands, and the photographs, whi