Studio: international art (10.1897)

Reviews of Recent Publications

she records, not as copies but as documents. In
these excellent collotypes are a store of pregnant
suggestions to those who can appreciate them. No
more valuable assistance to the arts is possible than
carefully selected examples of masterpieces; but to
reap the benefit of such lessons one must study and
analyse the work only to discard it, and imbibe the
spirit without regarding the letter. Miss Rowe is
too good an artist to advise blind imitation, and
her catholic criticism of the period of the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries here considered is
an admirable example of reverence, untainted with
superstition. To excel every example here given,
good as they are, should be the unspoken intention
of every student.

Measured drawings of French furniture from the
Collection in South Kensington Museum. By W. G.
Paulson Townsend. Part I. (London: i6Coleherne
Mansions, S.W.)—The intention of this work is
explained by the title, and is well carried out in a
series of plates. The specimens depicted in this
fascicule, are an escritoire, French, 1780-90, in
the Jones collection ; and an oak cabinet, French,
sixteenth century, from the Peyre collection. To
these two are devoted a dozen full-page litho-
graphs, showing views and measured details,
with sections and working drawings of not only
the structure, but the ormulu mouldings of one
and the incised details of the other. It is a
worthy idea most excellently carried out, Let us
hope it will not lead to the making of sham
antiques, but that every craftsman who has suffi-
ciently mastered technique to reproduce these will
not be satisfied to make copies, but will be
inspired to new efforts in similar but not too faith-
fully imitative ways.

La Battaglia di Pavia. Illustrata negli Arazzi
del Marchese del Vasto, al Museo Nazionale di
Napoli. Con cenni storici e descrittivi dell' Arch.
(Milano : Luca Beltrami. 1896.)—This is a hand-
some number in large folio, containing full
descriptive text of the celebrated battle of Pavia,
which took place February 24, 1525. The prin-
cipal feature of this work, however, is a series of
beautifully printed heliotypes of seven well known
and finely worked illustrations of this battle in
tapestry. These tapestries, now in the National
Museum at Naples, belonged originally to the family
of the Marchesi del Vasto, from whom they passed
by testamentary bequest to the Italian Government
in i860. They were presented by Charles V. to
Ferdinand Francesco d'Avalos, in recognition of his
bravery in the above battle. It is said that the
emperor called in the assistance of Titian and Tin-

toretto in the design of these tapestries, which were
executed by Flemish ladies.

The Cabinet Makers' and Upholsterers' Guide.
By A. Hepplewhite & Co. 1794. (London: B.
T. Batsford, 1897.)—This is a re-issue of the third
edition (improved) of Hepplewhite's famous designs
for furniture. After a hundred years a phrase in
the original preface may again (for the first time
since it saw light) be used truthfully. It runs,
" English taste and workmanship have of late years
been much sought for by surrounding nations."
But the rest of the sentence—" the mutibility (sic)
of all things, but more especially of fashions, has
rendered the labours of our predecessors in this line
of little use "—is obviously not so apt now, else were
this book left unreprinted. That many of the de-
signs are both beautiful and fit is true—yet we
must needs own that the twentieth century should
have courage to design its furniture without con-
tinually barking back to the past. This very beauti-
ful book is a volume of which the importance can
hardly be over-estimated—and yet, instead of
working out its projects anew, we would rather see
even the excesses and failures of genuinely new
efforts to do for us that which Hepplewhite did for
his contemporaries.

It is easy to be retrospectively sentimental over
the pleasant shapes herein depicted, and hardly
possible to over-value the knowledge of construc-
tion displayed in many, and the superb craft they
exacted from their artisans a hundred years ago.
But they breathe of past manners and past tastes,
and—with no disrespect to a great designer—you
are driven to conclude that his most worthy disciple
will admire, study, and understand these designs
only to forget them straight-away and do his best,
to surpass them in ways that belong to the present
day. You could not revive the political beliefs of
1794, nor the social habits, the insular self-satisfac-
tion and ignorance of cosmopolitan tastes which ob-
tained then. Therefore in place of sham Hepple-
white, sham Chippendale, or sham Mediaeval fur-
niture, let us hope we shall see finely designed,
well-wrought pieces owing little to precedent, turned
out with all the conscientious skill the early students
of this book bestowed on their cabinet making.
Mr. Batsford deserves warm praise for this notable
re-issue—it is a series that every designer and
architect will value as a standard work of reference.

M. A. Lepere has this year supplied the illustra-
tions for the Paris Almanac, published by M.
Sagot, of Paris. The little book is a most dainty
one and creditable alike to illustrator and publisher.

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