St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-01-15
NEW WALL HANGINGS.
Silks, SatiDs, Tapestries and Me
IS talliC Relief in artist;c ITsa

Il
| tallic Relief in Artistic Use,
This is an era of luxury in wall hang
ings. Mrs. Henry Clews, the wife of
the banker, set the feminine end of New
| York an example which it has not been
| slow to follow when she had her bOu-
doir draped with ivory-white silk caught
up with silver chains, some two or three
| years ago, says New York CORE
SpOndent of the Globe-Democrat.
Mrs. l.. del Monte, who is one of the
| most beautiful women in the city, never
/ shows her Spanish blonde fairness to
better advantage than when, after one
| OF her famous dinners, she admits one or
two intimates to her private apartments
| hung with the paleSt OF pale pink plush,
| yer cords. Mrs. Adolph Ladenberg,
| the most popular of the young chap
erons OF New York, has had her sleep
ing room retitted lately with blue silk
| panels painted in old garden flower de-
| signs. Mrs. Paran Stevens, when she
took Miss Alfredo Paget in hand, had
her charges boudOIr draped with a
bluiSh-white China silk embroidered
with lilies In silver. White, indeed is
the, color of all the younger society
buds and blossoms; when they think
| themselves in danger of fading they
| surround themselves with rose color OF
pink and pale yellow.
| The wall decorations of the more
public rooms of house are quite as
carefully considered and more eX-
penSive than those of milady'S boudoir.
Mrs. Whltney'S tapestries have cost her
fortune i'll themselves. There is a
private residence, not on the avenue
and not occupied by one of New York
richest men, the freScOing on the walls
of which represents the labor of
thirty men for three months, and cost q
fortune for any man outside of the city.
Not reckoning mural adOrnment of
this sort, which is possible only to mill
ionaires, wall paper has entered the do
main of fine art, and even the cheapest
of it not infrequently is nowadays the
work Of good designers.
The most expensive wall paper now
produced is pearl flock paper, which
for brilliancy and effectiveness in a
drawing room, especially by gaslight,
| casts into the shade the gold papers
which used to carry off the palm. This
pearl flock, which is seen in light and
delicate tints, reflects, not the satiny
sheen of pearls, but the sparkle of dia-
| mondS, and is prepared by peculiar
process which imbeds myriads of tiny
| crystal beads in the surface of the pa
per, catching the light continually. 1t
| costs from Sl8 to $50 roll, and makes a
very decorative wall furnishing.
Zone of the newer methods of wall
decorations, rather more expensive than
| the best of wall papers, is the so-called
metallic relief work, which was first
employed in this country in refnisll-
| ing Of the older Vanderbilt houses,
and which calls for a sculptor of some
ability to do it justice. A composition
of plaster, cement and paint is put upon
the walls. 1t does not Immediately
harden. and the workman, using few
tools, as steel brushes, combs, etc, but
| depending for the most part on his
| hands, mOldS design in which there is
not, as in wall paper, any repetition of
| pattern, but which harmoniZeS walls
and ceiling into one whole or into a
series of studies of effectively blending
groups. In the billiard room of a new
house in Brooklyn, meadow grasses and
field flowers are thus made to nod and
interlace upon the walls, filmy spider
webs stretching from spray to spray,
and cat-tails and tall rushes rising from
the bed of brook to mingle their
cOarSer heritage with the rest.
Metallic relief recommends itself to
many people because a design in one
house can never be exactly duplicated
in any other. 1t costs about $3.50 for a
room of average size, and the work is