THERE are no greater admirers of the French styles than the American people. Paris has been frequently described as “the Yankee Paradise,” and it is clear that many American furnishers are shaping their productions after the lines of the Parisian modes. On this page we are able to give an American adaptation of French styles which has been produced by Pain’s Furniture Company, and the designs have features about them which will doubtless be interesting to British furnishers. For example, the cabinet on the left is a shapely and pretty article, well adapted in its lower quarters for treasures which require to be enclosed, and equally suited in its upper story for open display. The little chair by its side is a sort of French-Chinese, which has been very popular. In the room there may be observed a very pretty Louis Seize chair, a corner seat, and a Louis Quinze arm-chair of the very latest form. The table in the centre is a charming study in the style of Marie Antoinette, as also the chimney-piece and overdoor. Taken as a whole, this apartment shows how cleverly American furnishers have taken up the delicate and ever-pleasing style which was seen in perfection at the Court of the unfortunate Louis XVI.
The Vienna exhibition of carpets, recently opened, includes specimens from Persia, the Caucasus, Bokhara, Afghanistan, Beloochistan, Smyrna, Kula, and other parts of Anatolia, Bosnia, India, China Japan, Tunis, and Morocco. There is a separate room for old carpets of all kinds and from all sources. Among the contributors are the Shah (though up to a recent date the valuable carpets promised from the royal palaces had not arrived, owing, it was said, to interruption of traffic on account of the severity of the winter), the Shah’s brother-in-law, Muschir-ed-Daube, the Persian Grand-Vizier, the Imperial Court of Vienna, many of the Austrian aristocracy, and firms in Vienna devoted to artistic weaving; also many museums, amongst which are the South Kensington Museum and the Art-Commerce Museum of Berlin. The items in the catalogue number 400, and represent literally fabulous wealth. The most magnificent and most valuable carpet exhibited is one sent from the Palace of Schonbriinn by the Emperor of Austria. It was presented by Peter the Great to the Emperor Charles VI, and is known to have been in possession of the Russian Court over 300 years. It is about eight yards long and three and a half broad, and is covered with incomparably beautiful arabesques, allegories, and hunting scenes. The design, indeed, is of the most elaborate description; huntsmen, on horseback are pursuing animals of all descriptions, lions, boars, gazelles, and hares, while dragons and phoenix birds with most beautiful plumage fill up the corners. Flowers of various colours and shades, some of fantastic shape, form the groundwork, and the branches and blossoms intertwine among animals and riders, so as to give the impression of a hunt taking place in an extensive field of flowers. It is handmade, of pure silk, interwoven with gold and silver threads, in the tapestry manner. Four artists must have worked on it at the same time, each at one of the corners. Among the exhibitors are also the Princes Schwarzenburg and Liechtenstein, Countess Clamgallas, Counts Schornborn, Enzenberg, and Lanckoronski, Freiherrs Albert and Nathaniel Rothschild, and Baron Mundy; also the Museums of Vienna, Berlin, Leipsic, South Kensington, and Buda Pesth, and many well-known collectors and amateurs
