International studio (23.1904)

Reviews

those of James I. as a Child, after Federigo Zuccero,
and of his grandmother, Mary of Lorraine, after
an unknown French master, both in the National
Portrait Gallery.
Fre?ich a?id English Furniture. By Esther
Singleton. (Hodder and Stoughton.) J2 2s.
net.—The purpose of this work, says the author, is
to provide all who are interested in French and
English Furniture since the Renaissance period with
a comprehensive and detailed view of the various
styles; and she adds that she knows of no book that
enables the student to learn with slight expenditure
of time and energy all that is necessary to know in
order to fit up a room in any given style. To
achieve a really satisfactory result with actual sur-
vivals of the past she admits to be impossible, but
she would advocate the actual reproduction of
beautiful models rather than the waste of time
involved in the search for true antiques. The
wisdom of this course will, however, scarcely be
generally conceded; for the result would certainly be
the flooding of the market with modem imitations,
and the checking of the originality of design for
which such reformers as William Morris and Walter
Crane have pleaded so eloquently and worked
so strenuously. Another incidental result of the
furnishing and decorating of rooms in a bygone
style would be the loss of the individual character
that gives the chief charm to a home, where good
tasteand unity of purpose are the guiding principles,
though each member of the family is allowed,
within due limits, a certain latitude in the adorn-
ment of his own sanctum. It seems strange that,
in her list of recognised authorities, the accomplished
writer should not have included Lady Dilke,
whose “ French Decoration and Furniture in the
Eighteenth Century ” has long been accepted as a
standard work, and whose example in giving with
each plate the name and origin of the room or
furniture represented, might with advantage have
been followed by her American contemporary. In
“ French and English Furniture ” the numerous
and excellent plates are without titles, nor is there
any list given of them, so that the reader has to
search the text before they can be identified. But
for this drawback, which could easily be removed in
future editions, the book will be found most useful
by the connoisseur and collector as well as by the
few millionaires who can afford to indulge their
taste for any given style by having every detail
accurately reproduced.
English and Scottish Wrought-Ironwork. By
Bailey Scott Murphy. (London: Batsford.)
y. net.—Not only the professional architects,

for whose use this costly volume was primarily
prepared, but all who mourn over the substitution
of characterless cast-iron for the beautiful wrought
work of the past, will owe a debt of gratitude to
Mr. Murphy. It cannot fail to do much to awaken
interest in an art the golden age of which coincided
with a deeply interesting period of the history of
Great Britain, and it may even inaugurate a renais-
sance of that art, for there is absolutely no valid
reason why the best wrought-iron work of the future
should not equal that of the past. “ Ironwork,”
says Mr. Murphy, “ was, both in England and
Scotland, principally used for defensive purposes,
and consequently strength was of the first import-
ance to the design.” He points out, further, that
the production of such work was continued north
of the Tweed long after it had been discontinued
in England—a fact significant of the dangers still
to be guarded against in Scotland. It was, how-
ever, in the grilles protecting shrines that the artist
in iron had the best scope for his ingenuity, it being
necessary to combine strength with delicacy, so
that the object of veneration could be clearly seen
from outside, and Mr. Murphy cites the remains
of the grille of St. Swithin’s shrine, four fragments
of which now form two gates in Winchester
Cathedral, as a successful example of this con-
junction. In the opinion of this expert critic it
was towards the close of the seventeenth century
that the high-water mark of English skill in iron-
work was reached, and he frankly admits the
claims of the Frenchman Jean Tijou to rank with
the great masters of the day in England. A very
high standard appears to have been maintained
throughout the eighteenth century, but with the
beginning of the nineteenth a marked decadence
set in. “ Modern work,” says Mr. Murphy, “ suffers
from the mingling of rolled and hammered iron,”
and he lays down the golden rule, which architects
would do well to lay to heart, “ that it is essential,
if the whole effect of a gate or railing is to be fine,
that all the parts, straight as well as curved, should
be forged.” In view of the great wealth of wrought-
ironwork in England, it must have been extremely
difficult to make a satisfactory selection of repre-
sentative examples, but a glance at the list of plates
is enough to prove that it has been successfully
achieved. In Scotland comparatively little good
work remains uninjured, but the specimens given
are excellent, and prove that Scottish workers in
iron, though they never equalled their English
rivals in delicacy of ornamentation, were fully able
to hold their own so far as dignity of design and
strength of structure were concerned.

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