New-York tribune., 1921-10-12
Decorations by
Hunt Shown at
Art Exhibition
Atmosphere of Eighties Is
Recreated in Showing of
Furnishings Designed q
for House in This City
Intensely French Effect
Jacobean Room Has Old
Oaken Paneling; Ball
room Is Framed in Ivory
By ROYAL Cort:esoz

A certain unusual personal interest
attaches to the first exhibition Of the
season at the American Art Galleries.
which opens to-day. 1t is made uo Of
the interior decorations and furnish
ings OF a house in this city which was
designed by the late Richard II Hunt
and embellished under his supervision.
The well arranged rooms. recreatine
much of the atmosphere al which he
aimed, come to us like g chapter from
the social history of New York.
1t is chapter dating from the SOS
The old modes directly associated with
the Civil War period and the next few
years had not wholly died out. but
were being forced TO the wall by the
European renovation Of American
taste. Hunt was leader Of those
architects who drew their inspiration
from France. He had gone through the
disciplinary experience to be had in
Paris, and what it meant to his genius
IN its seyerer implications was long
conspicuous in the monumental Lenox
Library. Everybody knows with what
decorative elegance he could overlay
his constructive ideas The Vanderbilt
house at Ffty-hrst Street spread wide
his fame as a designer with positively
romantic feeling, capable OF using with
perfect ease the light and lovely idiom
of the French Renaissance His style
IN the treatment Of interiors has net.
been so familiar
Walls of Ballroom Shown
The present exhibition throws light
on the subject. There have been set
up at the beginning of it the walls of a
ballroom which he framed in the ivory
paneling of the Regencc. an ensemble
Of discreetly gilded woodwork Exhib-
tied as they are, they revive the spirit
of Il house, and with the aid Of an IL
luStration in the catalogue one may
see precisely what the architect was
driving at. 1t was an intensely French
effect, n which the furniture, the big
canvas Of the school Of lie Moyne. the
mantel piece and mirror are all adjust
ed to the production Of the harmony Of
the period. The interesting point is
that this harmony is somehow natural
ly achieved, that there is no suggestion
of the muscle bound imitation which so
often confronts us N similar circum-
stances The Regence style is taken
over by the American artist with schol-
arship and taste He employs it as
though it were his own
For bis stained glass and there is
a considerable quantity Of it he
brought in a French craftsman, NJ. f.
OudinOt. The eXpedient undistakably
gives date TO the mansion for which
these things were made. Oudinot was
contemporary of Baudrv and Cal
land but he hadn't anything like their
decorative felicity The huge pictorial
window. Tho Field of the Cloth Of
Cold is merely huge. though it has,
perhaps. certain richness Of color
The smaller windows, Of more formal
style are possessed, to-day. of
sounder vitality. The antique medal
lions in them are admirably done
Everywhere in these windows there Is
good conventional design and there
is skillfpl drawing. But in respect 20
style their brilliaNce (and we can
imagine the admiral ION they must have
excited thirty years a9o) lTas curiously
faded. Tho work Of John La Fargo has
accustomed us to another tradition,
better one.
French Motives Predominate
French motives predominant in this
large and miscellaneous assemblage of
objects, but there is handsome
Jacogean room displayed. an affair Of
! fine old oaken panelng, and the
furniture ranges through divers
periods, with some Good Italian pieces
/ appearing now and then There is the
usual admiXture Of quite negligible ex-