ects (modern in subject,
method and colouring), water colours, etchings, sporting prints,
fashion prints, etc., there is, also, a subtle relationship between
them seen and felt only by the connoisseur, which leads him to hang in
the same room, portraits, architectural pictures and flower pictures,
with beautiful and successful results. Often the relationship hangs on
similarity in period, style of painting or colour scheme. Your expert
will see decorative value in a painting which has no individual beauty
nor intrinsic worth when taken out of a particular setting.

The selecting of pictures for a room hinges first on their decorative
value. That is, their colour and size, and whether the subjects are
appropriate and sympathetic.

Always avoid heavy gold frames on paintings, for, unless they are real
objects of art, one gets far more distinction by using a narrow black
moulding. When in doubt always err on the side of simplicity.

If your object is economy as well as simplicity, and you are by chance
just beginning to furnish your house and own no pictures, we would
suggest good photographs of your favourite old masters, framed close,
without a margin, in the passepartout method (glass with a narrow
black paper tape binding).

Old coloured prints need narrow black passepartout, while broad
passepartout in pink, blue or pale green to match the leading tone in
wall paper makes your quaint, old black-and-white prints very
decorative.

Never use white margins on any pictures unless your walls are white.

The decorative value of any picture when hung, is dependent upon its
background, the height at which it is hung, its position with regard
to the light, its juxtaposition to other pictures, and the character
of those other pictures--that is, their subjects, colour and line.

If you are buying pictures to hang in a picture gallery, there is
nothing to consider beyond the attraction of the individual picture in
mind. But if you are buying a picture to hang on the walls of a room
which you are furnishing, you have first to consider it as pure
_decoration_; that is, to ask yourself if in colour, period and
subject it carries out the idea of your room.

A modern picture is usually out of place in a room furnished with
antiques. In the same way a strictly modern room is not a good setting
for an old picture, if toned by time.

If you own or would own a modern portrait or landscape and it is the
work of an artist, and bea