Studio: international art (16.1899)

Mr. Baillie Scoffs Furnifoire and Decoration

birds in grey, white, and orange helps to carry
out the harmony of colour.

The open fireplace, which we in England take
so much as a matter of course, is to a great ex-
tent an innovation in Germany, where rooms are
usually heated by means of porcelain stoves.

Such an arrangement, however successfully it
may meet the requirements of the case as far as
heating the room is concerned, is necessarily to
our minds somewhat comfortless in appearance.

The treatment of the fireplace has indeed
come to be considered by our designers as the
focus for the scheme of the room which it domi-
nates, and to omit this so important feature
recalls the method of those famous actors who
left Hamlet out of the play.

The fireplace illustrated here consists of a pro-
jecting overmantel decorated with vertical panels
of Tynecastle tapestry in green, orange, and silver,
the vertical lines of which are broken by the central
clock, which presents a broad space of white wood-
work and a dial rich with repoussee copper and

FIRE-IRONS IN BRIGHT STEEL AND COPPER

DESIGNED BY M. H. BAILI.IE SCOTT

no

LOCK PLATE DESIGNED BY M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT

enamels. Under the shelter of this projecting
canopy the fireplace is surrounded with glazed
tiles where green merges into blue, and this
broad field of colour makes a fine contrast to
the reponssee copper hood, which in the heat of
the fire borrows some of the prismatic radiance
of the rainbow. The grate stands free on the
open hearth flanked by the firedogs. On the
red-brick wall, below the tiles, the fire-irons
hang in a row, and on these, as on the copper
kettle and other furnishings, the light glistens
with a thousand twinkling rays, while the whole
fireside is suffused with the tempered radiance
of the shaded electric light.

Here, again, in the selection of the various
articles which adorn the mantel, the artist has
to express his recognition of the tasteful way in
which her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess
has arranged everything in harmony with the
general scheme. One recognises everywhere
the evidence of a careful and exclusive choice,
and the individual and intrinsic beauties of
each ornament are not so apparent as the
harmonious relationship which exists between
them.

One perceives that each " vase and fan " are
members of an ideal society, and, to follow out
an obvious analogy, it may be noted that this