The times., 1898-10-16
HIGH ART FIREPLACFs
Flemish and Old English Decora-
tiOns Are the STYLE.


The very heart OF every beautiful
and newly-decorated room is the fire.
| place, so says the man who deals in
mantel shelves. CRATES and fre-dogs.
and he ought to know. for never be-
fore has he done bigger business than
this autumn. Houses that are being
built or are in process of redecoration
are all having their chimney places re-
fitted, and the demand of the house,
hoider Is for fireplace where wood
or coal not electric embers or gas logs.
can be made TO burn
A half dozen years ago when rich
Americans were enthusiastic over
fFench fashions, the demand was al
most exclusively for CRATES and fire.
PAGES that were copied from French
palaces and chateaus; now, however.
the superiority of the English architect
ure is recognized. Mr.. George Wander
Dllt Deing about the first to put It in use.
,,. me chimney piece and fittings in the
uordry or Biltmore are patterned in
many respects. after the one in the Ii
brary or an old Scottish castle. and the
dogs that uphold the giant logs In this
stately room stand nearly five feet
| hlSh They We're designed and cast in
bronze in this country. but every
american cannot afford either the
VI EXPENSE OF burning season.
| ed logs, and in all the newly done
| over city houses the crate is still the
| thing. Around the hub. dog. or basker
| crate is then built mantel or an
ingie-nook, or the crate is made to
simulate the open mouth OF a giant
Dutch stove.
The ingle-nook or settle was originally
an English invention, but the present
taste is for deal Of Flemish decoration
comfortable species of fireside to halls
or libraries Carried out according to the
pest authority, it must be done in ma
noEany and consist of a low benched
| trestle seat against paneied dado. and
above that small panied windows. each
section OF which should have one square
OF colored glass. This glass prettiIv dis
plays either the initials or coat of arms
OF the owner Of the house or sometimes.
with more originality, chosen totem
II the ingle-nook is used as a sort Of
lounging and smoking corner for the
mead OF the house. the coIored central
glasses snow fanciful caIumets. magnffi-
cent meerchaums and briar woods cross
ed In the golfing district grouped clubs
and Scotch thistles are seen. and tba
complete ingIe-nook has shelves for
sporting books, lockers under the seat for
cordial and brandy bottles. a cupboard
Tor cigars and cigarettes and a smoking
table. The trestle seat is uphoIste-efi in
tapestry Of JabObian design. showing the
pleasures of the chase as pursued in the
day OF learned King James. and similar
tapestry is hung in the open frame work
that incloses the ingle-nook.
Then. as TO the hearth itself creen
Dutch tiles form the actual surround.
while large old style serving basket of
black iron holds the Goals over a step of
@ rich RED Welsh bricks. Gray stone, left
PLAIN hewn, supplies the jaTlbs and man
tie piece, and over the suspended basket
3uts out hood of red tiles to match the
brick hearth
now this IS the ingle-nook as II is seen
To-Day In old Lancashire and Westmore-
Iand houses, whence they are copied ev
actly' even to the wooden jack in the
corner, used hundred years ago for puII-
ing on the masters jack boots when he
came home after a day with the hounds
The jack is practically utilized as a foot
stool, just as the tinder cup. sitting on a
putting brick by the CRATE. receives now
adays the ashes of the cigar-smokfng
Americans.
quite as fashionable a mantelpiece as
the inSle-noOk. copied from a Jacobian
mouse, is a New England chimney corner.
copied from any of the old seventeenth
century frame houses about Plymouth
Newport or Boston They have been in
troduced this year in many houses where
the square hall is used as a living room
and where tea is served in the afternoon.
The whole face of the chimney and the
lining thereof IS done with red brick
carefully antiqued to get the proper age
color. The bricks are burnt. then buried
and finally, when the fireplace is built.
wood file is used to wear away their
edges, in stimulation of the gnawing tooth
of time and usage. Quite as often the
whole fireplace is done in roughly set
field stones. and the wooden mantel IS
carved with the flat rosettes and neat cor
rugations so dear TO the colonial heart
Those who can afford and prefer to burn
wood in their New England fireplaces use
the small brass fire dogs and treasure
their ashes, but in city houses wrought
iron dog CRATES are preferred for holding
a palpitating bed of Welsh coal. and cups
and crumpets are kept hot in the oven
that opens in one side of the bricked
walls.
After the long reign of Louis Quatorze
Quinze and Seize periods of freplaces for
drawing rooms, the fashion is now for
the beautiful and elaborate Adam CRATES
and tenders of eXQuisitely engraved and
| pierced brass. One and all these are made
with outstanding firedog pedestais in
front, while the bars of the crate Itself
are of steel polished like cambric
needle. So elaborate is the work on some
! of these Adam gr;S $ with dogs that
| their cost mounts up in the thousands.
Such CRATES have frames OF carved Alge-
rian onyx, which is much more jewel Ike
in beauty than the Mexican onyx and far
rarer. Fleur de Pecher marble. which
comes from France, and is most eXquis-
itely inlaid. is another material used n
newly decorated drawing rooms and bou-
doirs. F'leur de Pecher is rose tinted
marble. decorated with other marbles
and with inlay of metals; but the top
notch of extravaganza in ornamental
mantels has been reached in one New
York house, where the dull brown stone
of the fireplace jamb and mantel shelf is
full of precious Persian turquoise, just as
It appears in the mother rock.
As there is an accepted fashion in
drawing-room. library and hail man
telpieces, so does the new law of
house decoration enforce the very
choice style of Queen Anne chimney
piece of the dining-room. The best of
these are copied from Hampton Court
Palace and Welbeck Abbey, and the
blackest sort of oak is used in their
composition while only a very little of
the best Nankin china is allowed as
bric-a-brac on the shelves. The tops
of these chimney pieces reach as high
as the frieze on the wall. and while
the top and sides of the pieces are In
grotesouely carved corbets and step
ned lambs. the fireplace is done in an
tioue glazed bricks, with hicks on either
side to hold statuettes or dishes of toast
| and tea
Ry every device the dinlng-room fire
NP 1ntrht IN 20