Identifier: examplesofhouseh00smit (find matches)
Title: Examples of household taste
Year: 1875 (1870s)
Authors: Smith, Walter, 1836-1886 Smith, Walter, 1836-1886. Industrial art of the International Exhibition
Subjects: Centennial Exhibition (1876 : Philadelphia, Pa.) Decorative arts
Publisher: New York, R. Worthington
Contributing Library: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library

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s is in an art point of view than the multiplication of one given style, weneed not here consider. It is sufficient to point out that while an objectaccepted as a model or standard of excellence in form, ornamentation anddecoration is always beautiful and loses nothing by duplication, this servilecopying is fatal to all artistic activity and progress. The study of the beautifulis always to be commended, but it should be pursued with a view to directingoriginal ability in the proper directions and subject to the acknowledged canonsof art. Here and there in the group before us we recognize examples of thepottery known as Doulton-ware, which in its way is quite as beautiful as theLambeth faience. In wandering through the several European courts at the Centennial, theAmerican visitor, whose experience of civilization had been confined to thiscountry, gained for the first time a realizing sense of the luxury of the oldworld. It is true that the homes of our wealthy classes are crowded with
Text Appearing After Image:
Ebony Inlaid Cabinet: S. Coco, Italian Court. 322 THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. objets de luxe and master works of great artists brought from abroad, butnever before had the furniture for palaces, the magnificent carved pieces, theexquisite textiles, the costly porcelains such as we all had read about, been opento the general view. Every nation contributed of her best and choicest objectsin honor of our Centennial Exhibition, and many of the chefs dceuvre theredisplayed now adorn the palaces of Europe as well as our own palatialhomes. One of these pieces, an Ebony Inlaid Cabinet, manufactured by S. Coco,of Florence, and exhibited in the Italian Court, is seen in the engraving onpage 321. We can readily imagine the magnificence of the apartment in which sucha piece of furniture as this should be placed. The mere cost of the mechanicallabor in constructing this cabinet, without considering the price paid for theartistic work, must have been very great. Its details cannot be apprec

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