Dutch and Flemish Furniture
have the salon, dining-room, show-room, the sleeping-
room, the little cabinet (office), the gold leather room,
the damask room, the matted room, the room of Adam
and Eve, Mr. Arends's room, Miss Emerentia's room,
Mr. Cornelius van Beveren's sleeping-room, etc., etc.
In wealthy homes the walls of some rooms were en-
cased in tiles, decorated with painted figures, flowers,
arms, or pictorial scenes or mottoes ; and upon these
hung many fine paintings in richly carved ebony frames.
In some houses every available space on the wall in
every room was occupied by a picture ; so that from top
to bottom the rooms were filled with masterpieces of art.
Some rooms on the ground floor were hung with splendid
tapestries, representing hunting-scenes, Biblical stories,
coats-of-arms, mythological and historical legends and
stories, etc., etc. Other rooms were hung with em-
broidered materials, with red velvet, with gold or silver
flowered borders, or with gold or stamped leather of
various colours and patterns. Sometimes, also, the walls
were panelled and wainscotted, particularly where beds
or cupboards stood. In poor houses the walls were
simply whitewashed or covered with square tiles of gay
colours. The ordinary burghers strewed their floors with
fine sand, and often arranged it so deftly by means of the
broom in a design of flowers or geometrical figures that
one would think a figured carpet was laid upon the floor.
In rich homes the floor, as a rule, was covered with fine
Spanish matting ; and when guests came, a rug or car-
pet was spread over this, but on their departure it was
carefully rolled up and put away. Some of the floors-
often those of the garret—were laid in coloured tiles.

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