The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-09-17
NEW JAcoBEAN FURNITURE.
MRS. ELLIOT +. SHEPHERD's USE
OF THESE STATELY MODELS.

Plate Boys Are a New Piece of Fur
niture That Is Finding Great Fa-
vor Among Women Just NOw-Red
Is the Popular Color for Schemes
of House Decoration. and Runs
From Norris scarlet to Mulberry.
a Consistent Return TO Dark Inte-
rfors and Heavy Polished Mahog-
any--NOveIty Chairs Include the
GOndOIa, Upholstered in Venetian
Velvet. a Dutch Easy Chair. and
One of Jacobean StyIe-Murrey Col
Ored Leather Very Much in Vogue.
New York. Sept. 15.-Red, running
through the gamut Of its rich dyes, from
Morris scarlet 10 the deepest mulberry, is
by the universal choice the favorite
scheme in house decoration this season.
The steadily Increasing popularity of ma
hogany in simple colonial forms has
brought this sanguine color into fashion,
and after long daliiance with French styles
and momentary fancy for delft blues,
lavish use of gliding and white paint, the
whole inclination of extremely modern
interior ornamentation is toward the old
err darker and severer English modes.
Nothing is more acute.y fashionable, for
instance, than library, hall, or even
an entire first floor, wholly decorated and
furnished after the best Jacobean models
left in England Ireland and Scotland, AMI
one of the charms of King James room
is that it can be done at as lavish or
moderate cost as you please. and tits like
tf,s.
can homes.
Mrs. Elliot F. Shepard's House.
In Mrs. Elliot F Shepherds New York
house. only recently com 'oted, there is
| a small Jacobean library that would be
a faultless model for any one desiring
a similar room to copy. The walls are
| hung in murrey colOred leather, and the
woodwork is carved cedar; the floor Is
stained black then waxed, highly polish
ed and on it are laid red rugs. All the
furniture and this motif in decoration
come from an ancient manor house on
the border between England and Scot
land. Carved fumed oak, so called from
being BACKED by age and the smoke from
slow peat fires, forms the presses that
hold the books, and the wooden portion
OF the quaint, uncomfortable, long-legged,
low-backed conversation chairs, the win
dow stools and the settees. Murrey col
ored leather upholsters these, and in cor
ners against the walls there are carved
locked chests for holding valued manu-
scripts and family papers, and one long
tapestry curtain hangs at each deeply re-
ceSsed window.
The effect of the Jacobean room is, in
| spite of its absence of mirrors gilt and
| loose bric-a-brac, wonderfully rich, state
| ly and cosy, and in those houses where
no such liberal expenditure as in Mrs.
Shepherds could he INDUCED the deco
rators have pursued the King James style
| with wonderful cheapness and success.
! They copy the quaint furniture forms in
| carved black American walnut, or use
| an oak that by artitice is given the worn,
/ dusky tone of great age. Burlaps is laid
| on walls and painted murTey red, and
walnut is used for woodwork or door fac
| inSs, etc, painted black. Where in any
! room this early sixteenth century idea OF
| decoration is followed, the bric-a-brac is
! carefully boarded up IN open fronted cup
! boards, or shallow presses with half glass
/ doors, and the very newest idea in dining
| rooms IS a great plate sideboard.
The Plate Boy.
| Whenever a dinner party is given now
adays, it is in the code of fashion for she
! hostess to order on view all her beautiful
! Plate, gold and silver, rot so mucn for act
! ual table use as for display and the Grna-
/ mentation Of her dining room. Now, the
| ordinary long, low Georgian, or what we
! call colonial, StdeSOard uf mahogany is
not wen suited for t.ls SO that some wo-
| men who do not only own splendid silver
| services, but whose hush tnds have won
1 with their yachts and received from cor
porations beautiful gifts Of plate require
/ special sideboards on which 10 exhibit
! their glitteTing boards.
For this purpose i'm black carved oak
/ Jacobean plate boys, with shelves rising
nearly to the ceiling, are being especially
! buift and so placed in handsome dining
/ rooms that the light from many-branched
candelabrum can fail effectively on the
tiers Of almost Nibelungen richness. Mrs.
| Bradley Martin was one OF the first wo-
men in America to use a plate boy, and
she introduced one at her dinner parties
! last winter. Hers was of richly carved
fumed oak, a genuine King James or
! Charles piece and its top shelf nearly
touched the dining room ceiling. Those Of
her wealthy friends who this winter wiz
follow her Initiative are some of them hav-
ing their plate boys built of any simple
wood and then entirely covered Il ruby
red velvet. against which the Plate will
show as effectively and certainly at much
less expense than on the lofty oak shelves.
Red Drawing Rooms.
Sang de boeuf, or bulls blood red is the
approved tint in which the drawing rooms
are being done over, and the decorators
say that it is the most becoming back
| ground possible for women of all colorings,
and especially when in evening dress. IL
appears that in drawing room decoration,
as in the feminine wardrobe, fabrics go
in and out of fashion about every five