WHILE Duncan Phyfe did a great deal of completely original work, he was influenced very strongly by Hepplewhite and Sheraton, though more especially the latter. Many of Phyfe’s pieces show the same straight, narrow, high-shouldered effect that proved one of the charms of the Sheraton style. In his original work he developed a use of curves that was quite his own, and which may be noticed in the legs of the drop-leaf table showing the urn pedestal, to be seen in the center of the furniture grouping; and also in the tiptop candle stand at the extreme right. These reverse-curve legs are particularly typical; and in such tables—three or four legs, as the case may be—curve in an inverted concave manner from the lower end of a central post, which in turn supports the table. Hence it will be seen that these reverse-curve legs are more than feet, since they extend for about half the distance between the table top and the floor. In the chairs of the period we can learn at once to recognize this most marked Duncan Phyfe characteristic, especially since we are accustomed to seeing the convex curve of the more usual cabriole leg of other styles; for, as may be noticed in the chairs shown in the grouping, the legs of many Duncan Phyfe chairs are slightly concave and curve in gradually from the front of the seat, then curve out again as they approach the floor, at the same time set in a vertical line instead of extending out toward the side as much as does the cabriole leg.

The sewing stand with straight tapering legs, also to be seen in the grouping, is typical of the Sheraton influence found in the earlier furniture of Duncan Phyfe, and which has so strong a bearing on the proper understanding and use of this style. Sofas and other furniture may be straight-legged in deference to this influence, or they may be curved in true Directoire fashion, like the Phyfe sofa in the pictured living room.

Such individual pieces may be selected for their typical line and their inspired use of fine mahogany wood; and it will be found that it but adds to the interest and variety of the room to mix the straighter-line Phyfe pieces with those which show the lyre and curve—selecting the former from the early Phyfe period, and the latter from the mid-Directoire and the early-Empire phase of this last “one-man” genius in furniture design.

Part 2 of a 1927 magazine article on Duncan Phyfe Furniture

ANYONE who is fortunate enough to own some old piece of Duncan Phyfe furniture will be sure to tell you at once that it has more real personality than any other furniture he owns. There is a certain delicate elegance in the swing and flare of such pieces of “gentleman mahogany” which allows them to grace the finest room, and also enables them to refine many a room furnished in mahogany types too ponderously massive to be smartly up-to-date. Place a Duncan Phyfe sofa and turn-top table in a living room furnished in the too heavy American Empire style, and see how the effect is lightened and made smarter at once. Furnish an entire room as nearly as possible in Duncan Phyfe pieces, and see if you and your home will not rejoice in as classical an American loveliness as that to be found on the first floor of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. For this floor of the wing owes much of its charm to its happy use of old Duncan Phyfe originals.

The pale sepia tones of the landscape set used for the walls cause the mahogany furniture to appear to fine advantage.

But whether your specimens of the Duncan Phyfe style chance to be treasured old family pieces, or whether they are merely the result of the modern reproducer who is inspired by old Duncan Phyfe designs, such furniture owes its chief distinction to its many unusual characteristics and details. There are the peculiarly lovely reverse-curve legs, which provide perhaps the most noticeable earmark of the style. There are the daintily carved lyre motifs found so often in the under-construction of the tables, or used as the decorative motif in the formation of chair backs. There are the trefoiled drop leaves of slender tables, which may be seen at their best silhouetted against some fair pale wall; there are the graceful Directoire curves of the sofas of the period, contrasted with the equally graceful high-shouldered Sheraton tendencies found in some of the other pieces illustrative of this style. And the details, which add an especial richness of whimsical surprise and delightful originality to the entire Duncan Phyfe period, are supremely individual in their quaint use of lion’s feet and eagle’s wings, trumpets, thunderbolts and ears of wheat, brass toes and lion-head handles, star and eagle hardware, and old-fashioned underbags on sewing tables!

All in all, we find the Duncan Phyfe style the quaintest sort of an admixture of charmingly unrelated contradictions, of tendencies which are at once Sheraton, Hepplewhite and Directoire; English and French; but the result, in its final analysis, is American! For the Duncan Phyfe style is one we can call truly our own, and it is just as much at home in our houses today as are we Americans ourselves.

For the most celebrated cabinetmaker this land has ever produced was Duncan Phyfe, who, though he was born in Scotland in 1768, came to this country with his parents at sixteen years of age, and settled with them in Albany, New York. Somewhat later, in Albany, Duncan Phyfe gained the reputation of being a very fine cabinetmaker indeed, but it was not until he removed to New York City that he achieved a more or less national fame, which increased as time went on, until he was considered the leading furniture maker and designer in the country. The period from about 1795 to 1825 may be considered the highest peak of his career, and the designs he made were so exceedingly fine that we delight in their reproductions today, and include them, as a sort of grand finale, in our Early American styles of the third, and last, sub-period division.

Part 1 of a 1927 magazine article on Duncan Phyfe Furniture

A very good example of fine lines in an unpretentious sofa may be found in the two-seat model covered in dark-grounded cretonne here shown in the three-quarter size, but obtainable also in the larger style. There is a fineness of proportion and a lack of overweight, emphasized by such desirable details as the thin rolled arm and the French foot; and great comfort is guaranteed I by the semidetached extra section of down filling in the back, constructed so that it attains grace rather than heaviness. This is the sort of sofa that might be used in any kind of room; and pieces of this general type come in all sorts of prices, assuming whatever character is desired through the presence of certain details and by the type of covering that is selected. Without materially changing its character such a sofa may have a different foot, an uneven headline with flat upholstery, and more flare of arm, still keeping to the idea of moderate over-stuffing and well-designed proportions. Chosen in the proper length, a sofa of this sort would be neither too heavy nor too slight for any type room in which it was to be used, and there could be no gain in choosing a bulkier style.

SOFAS which have more flare of line may be seen in the Virginia sofa, shown in connection with the tiptop table and atlas globe, and the Georgian sofa reminiscent of Chippendale and Queen Anne. The Virginia sofa shows a frame of brown mahogany carved very slightly as befits its modified character; and it is covered in a black-grounded tapestry accented by a design of tan. Such a sofa could be used in any living room in which it was desired to stress a late eighteenth or early nineteenth century American character. Mahogany secretaries with small-paned doors, Governor Winthrop desks, Duncan Phyfe tables, tiptops, wing chairs, the more delicate Windsors and gateleg tables, all fall into the picture readily and delightfully. The Georgian sofa is more formal, especially so since it is covered in soft red damask, and might find itself very happily at home in the living room which prided itself on simple pieces of William and Mary and Queen Anne furniture. A seventeenth-century wing chair of English type, a Chinese cabinet and a pair of French chests might suggest a desirable grouping. By changing the type of covering material, however, from damask to a plain frizette or machine-woven needle-point, this sofa would lend distinction as well as comfort to any walnut-furnished living room.

For the informal early American living room, or for any bedroom at all, the quaint small sofa with the slightly “scooped” back is very desirable. Suitably covered, and used with maple, it will prove that sofas do not have to be “grand” to attain distinction, but that they may follow the character of any simple furnishing with such suitable charm that distinction will be gained at once.

In choosing a sofa the size of the room must be considered, as well as the scale of the other furniture with which it is to be used. If space must be conserved there is no better way of doing it than by selecting a sofa of three-quarter size, which is more than adequate for most occasions. Such sofas may be found in various lengths, from about forty-five to sixty inches over-all, the latter dimension being sufficiently important and very adaptable for rooms of medium size. Desirable three-seat sofas come from sixty-six to ninety inches over-all in length, depending upon type—the greater lengths usually being found in especially large-sized Virginia sofas. In the entirely overstuffed style, an average and very usable three-seat sofa measures about seventy-three inches over-all; in such an actual sofa, showing Hepplewhite lines, there is a difference of twenty-four inches between it and a sofa made just like it in three-quarter size, the latter measuring forty-nine inches over-all. This comparative difference is a gauge for other types, since usually most sofas may be had in either size. Three-quarter-size sofas may start as low as fifty dollars. Full-size sofas of good design may be found somewhat under a hundred dollars—and on up.

Sofas depend greatly on actual type for much of their measure of good looks. A fine foot, the veriest hint of flare in the arm, a broken headline, a graceful slope of back, will mean everything in style to the most unassuming piece, and allow it to attain distinction, while these earmarks of the finer types are demanded in the more expensive sofas as a matter of course by those who have learned to appreciate fine furniture. Sofas which conform even slightly to such period influences as William and Mary, Queen Anne, Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and Duncan Phyfe, are in great demand, and in simplified forms they add character and beauty to the most unpretentious room.

A very good example of fine lines in an unpretentious sofa may be found in the two-seat model, shown above, which may also be obtained in the larger sizes of the same style.

IN THE enthralling business of furnishing her home, almost every woman looks forward expectantly to the exact moment when she can afford to buy her sofa. For rarely can a living room start life successfully without this furniture piece of greatest comfort, which may be counted on to yield untold hours of cozy enjoyment before the blazing logs on the hearth, as well as to provide the proper and most logical nucleus around which to group the lesser pieces.

But how many of us are perfectly sure what kind of sofa it is that we should buy? How many of us know that, while comfort is an absolute essential, a comfortable sofa without real style is thrown away on any room that has hopes of being beautiful; and that a sofa which has durability and not distinction lives to make us regret it every day ? How many of us know how to choose a sofa that, no matter how much or how little is spent for it, may achieve beauty anywhere, and may be counted on for lovely suitability when used with any future furnishings we may acquire? Paying a large price for a sofa is no sure guaranty of future esthetic satisfaction. In a certain living room that just missed success, its owner finally laid the failure where it belonged—with the sofa that had cost more than any other single piece of furniture in the room; and when it was replaced by one of a different type the room immediately achieved the distinction it had lacked.

ON THE other hand, a sofa of very moderate price may sometimes attain absolute success from the decorative standpoint, and be worthy of carrying over into a finer “some-day” home if in the beginning it has been chosen for distinction. An eighty-five-dollar sofa, purchased for supposedly temporary use, proved more than a pleasant surprise to its owner when it looked so well with the expensive furnishings of a later home that it was given a fine new cover and allowed to stay among the costlier thoroughbred pieces where it belonged by right of its own high-bred lines. This sofa was six feet long, but it was very graceful. The arms were thin and somewhat flared, there was a slight curve on the headline at the back, the overstuffing was comfortable but not opulent, there was a proper moderation in the depth and ” sling ” of the seat, and the nicely shaped Queen Anne feet allowed the sofa to clear the floor sufficiently to minimize its size.

As aids to choosing the proper sofa there are certain things we should learn to know. Sofas of distinction are never bulky-looking. They may be large, in that they are of the regulation full length, but they have the happy faculty of not looking so; they may be small, in that they are designed to hold two seat cushions only, and so fit gracefully into the small-size room, but they never look diminutive, and can surprisingly seat three people when required. Distinctive sofas never show exaggeration—in overwidth of arm, in too much paddiness of back, in an unnecessary slouchiness of seat, in ornateness of wood carving or opulence of covering. They owe their charm instead to line and grace and a certain fineness of contour which may be found in pieces to fit any pocketbook, but which always look high-priced.

Sofas of distinction are never bulky-looking. They owe their charm to line and grace and a certain fineness of contour which may be found in pieces to fit any pocketbook.

A Comparison between American and Italian Homes

Part 3 of a 1927 magazine article on The Perfect Home

THE LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL has played an extremely important part in this betterment for more than a generation and will continue to do so on an increasingly elaborate scale in the future. Of the influence already exerted by this magazine, Mark Sullivan says in his book. Our Times, that THE LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL and its editor, Edward Bok, rendered a greater service to American women and to the American home than any other notable force in a generation. During the past forty years THE JOURNAL has published the equivalent of an extensive library on the one subject of better home building and better home furnishing alone.

THE carpingest of critics are forever bewailing the fact that our homes are becoming hopelessly standardized through the very improvements that have added vastly to their comfort and which are constantly lightening the rigors of housekeeping. Home cooking is said to be deteriorating in the same degree that the behavior of our children has become a scandal. Vast numbers of wives cook out of cans and bottles, whereas their mothers spent hours over coal ranges baking bread, brewing soups and broths and fabricating mountains of pastry. These same critics admit that the greater number of these earlier housekeepers were rather desolate drudges but add that they were better occupied as drudges than are the housewives of today who divide their time between slaving for women’s clubs and going to the movies. The carping critic, however, is perpetually out of focus on what makes for progress and happiness.

The American home, on the average, is an enormous improvement over what it was even so late as the nineties, and this improvement shows no symptoms of diminution.

The tabloid flat of the great cities is infinitely removed from perfection save as a parking place for childless couples who employ it exclusively for sleeping purposes; but for the younger generation who set up housekeeping in its narrow quarters it should prove a great stimulus to move on to something better in the suburbs. Just at this time of the year, when the buds begin to swell, the dwellers in kitchenette flats are stirred with yearnings and discontent. They must move somewhere, to something more like a home. Their ideals lie somewhere between the Italian villa and its gardens and the half a twin house with its modern improvements. How marvelous if they could combine the virtues and eliminate the disadvantages of both! But move they must and move they will. In New York City alone one hundred thousand families move each year—and the great majority of these moves are in the direction of the perfect home. If these United States have no other one cause for national optimism, there is certainly one provided in the unassailable fact that as a nation our greatest of all drives is for better homes. So check this off in the “mad” month of March against all the croakers.

Source: The Ladies Home Journal, March 1927

A Comparison between American and Italian Homes

Part 2 of a 1927 magazine article on The Perfect Home

T0 THE dwellers in the Florentine villa the little half a twin house in Philadelphia would be awful to contemplate, and the same would be true to the young couple who find unbounded satisfaction in the efficiency housekeeping made possible by the very up-to-date appliances they have purchased and paid for on the installment plan. One may ask what is going to happen in both these homes when the babies begin to assemble. Think of raising children in that beautiful but derelict Italian villa. Frightful, if you look at it from the viewpoint of one accustomed to the innumerable housekeeping handmaidens evolved by modern science. But then what a playground those villa gardens offer and what a training for young eyes in appreciation of the beautiful. Think then of that gas-house outlook from the half a twin house and the playground of flat hard pavements, icy cold in winter and baking hot in summer.

Yet great men and great women are known to have come from infinitely bleaker surroundings, just as multitudes of worthless men and women have spent their childhoods in what to many eyes seemed gardens of Eden. And happily in these United States the perfect home, for every ambitious married couple, is something that the future will provide.

Foreigners regard us as a nation of nomads, ever on the move. For two generations to grow up in the same home is a thing almost unknown. We are mad about home improvements but utterly indifferent to home permanency. The Smiths are living in New Jersey one year and in Illinois the next. The Joneses have lived in five states in ten years, though it is true that the Joneses started in a kitchenette flat in Brooklyn and have progressed to a twenty-room house with two-car garage and acre of garden in a beautiful suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. And in all this moving about, the Joneses had a liberal education in home making. Each time they moved they were harder to please, increasing their demands upon the architect and builder.

Nowhere in the world, since history began to keep records, has there been such an incessant drive for better homes as has been witnessed in these United States during the past century.

A Comparison between American and Italian Homes

Part 1 of a 1927 magazine article on The Perfect Home

THERE are twenty-room villas on the lovely hillsides of Florence, Italy, that can be had for fewer dollars than the purchase price of half a twin house in the reclaimed swamp region of South Philadelphia. These villas have no gas, no electricity, no adequate sewerage system, no furnace, no hot and cold running water, nary a bathtub. But they are beautiful to look at from the outside. Several acres of gardens that suggest Paradise surround them. There are magnificent olive trees more than a century old. There are majestic poplars that have been pruned and trained for five generations. There are oleanders with gorgeous bloom. The selection and placing of the shrubbery is a work of justly famed Florentine art. Landscape architects from every clime go to these gardens to make sketches and purloin ideas. Too frequently they seek to adapt them in the wrong setting.

A young couple of very limited means dwell in one of these villas and are so intoxicated with the beauty and charm of the surroundings that their senses are numb to the innumerable inconveniences and shortcomings of the house itself. The young husband is a Latin scholar and the young wife writes sonnets. They call it a perfect home.

In half a twin house in the reclaimed swamp area of South Philadelphia another young couple are in the beginning stages of home making. It is a cramped and cabined little house, but it is lighted with electricity and provided with gas, hot and cold running water, a tiny tiled bathroom, almost-hardwood floors, a telephone, a radio, an electric sewing machine, a vacuum cleaner, an electric washing machine and a diminutive but nevertheless efficient electric ice box. There is also a tiny garage that contains a tiny motor-driven coupe lovingly known as Little Henry.

The young husband in this very modern little dwelling sells electric ice boxes and the young wife is still employed as secretary in a lawyer’s office. Their combined small salaries have bought and equipped this little home, which at present is to them preeminently perfect. Perfect notwithstanding that there are only twenty-six square feet of scraggly sod by way of garden, a seedy-looking sycamore tree out near the curb and a microscopic paved area out in back where a wash may be hung out. There is no outlook from this little house save a huge gas tank a short distance away across the flats that are being gouged by tractors to build more and more rows of twin houses all of the same unlovely bandbox patterns.

The Perfect home – To be continued…

Titian and Auburn Hair Types continued…

Part 4 (final part) of a 1927 magazine article on choosing fashion colors to suit your hair color and personality

RED : Never becoming to any of these four types in any of its shades up to and including pink. The only possible exception would be the auburn brunette, with hair that is so very dark that it is almost brown.

HENNA: Is the most becoming color to these four types, but must be of the exact shade and intensity of the hair. A more vivid henna shade would detract from the hair, while a lighter shade would be of no especial advantage to it.

ORANGE: The same as henna.

YELLOW : Only very good for the auburn brunette; not especially becoming to the auburn blonde; not becoming to Titian blondes or brunettes as a rule. When worn at all should be selected in soft, creamy shades.

GREEN: Especially becoming to both the auburn and Titian blondes; not particularly becoming to the auburn or Titian brunettes. Green must be chosen by all types with especial consideration for its possible sallowing effect upon the skin.

BLUE : In all its clear, vivid shades is especially becoming to both auburn and Titian blondes. Not as becoming to an auburn or a Titian brunette, but quite wearable.

PURPLE: Extremely becoming to both the auburn and Titian blondes, and fairly becoming to the auburn brunette and the Titian brunette. Like green, it must be chosen with special consideration for its sallowing effect upon the skin, and worn only in a shade that corresponds to the intensity of the coloring of the wearer.

ORCHID: The same as purple. Brunettes wear the rosier shades of orchid well; blondes the bluer shades.

BEIGE AND GRAY: Beige is far more becoming to all these four types than gray, although gray is quite wearable, especially by the auburn and Titian blondes.

BROWN : The most becoming color possible to both the auburn and Titian brunettes in all its shades. Likewise very becoming to both the auburn and Titian blondes, although not as much so as to the brunettes.

BLACK: Extremely becoming to all four types and often the most inconspicuous and yet nattering color that they could possibly wear. Not only the coloring but the personality and size should be considered in selecting black as a staple color.

WHITE: The loveliest color for any of these four types if the complexion can stand it.

GOLD AND SILVER: Both wearable, but gold preferred, in a corresponding tone to the hair.

We hope you have enjoyed this 4 part series on correct fashion colors for blondes and brunettes. We invite you to take a look at some books on 1920′s hairstyles we have published. Click here to see books on 1920′s and 1930′s hairstyles.

Titian and Auburn Hair Types

Part 3 of a 1927 magazine article on choosing fashion colors to suit your hair color and personality

THERE are four distinct groups in this class. First, the Titian blonde.

The true Titian blonde has flaming red hair that is vivid enough not to be called blond and light enough not to be called auburn; blue, gray or green eyes and a fair, colorless complexion. Any deviation from this true type must be taken into consideration when selecting shades—complexion deviations in particular.

Second, the Titian brunette. The true Titian brunette has flaming hair, brown eyes and fair, colorless skin.

Third, the auburn blonde. This type has hair that is copper colored, darker than Titian hair, yet more coppery than brown; blue, gray or green eyes and usually fair, colorless skin. Complexion deviations must be considered in selecting shades. Only if an auburn blonde has hair that is so dark as to be almost brown is rouge or coloring in the cheeks becoming.

And last, the auburn brunette. This type has copper-colored hair that is not brown, brown eyes and fair, colorless skin. If an auburn brunette has very dark hair and olive skin, then she is flattered by a bit of coloring in her cheeks; otherwise not.

These four types must give their hair first consideration in selecting their shades of becoming colors. Even if it sometimes seems as though the range of becoming colors is very limited, they must remember that the beauty of the hair is sufficient to compensate for this. No more glaring color defects are to be found than those made by red-haired people. The charm of this type is in its own natural coloring, and this must always be remembered.

Any of these four types must make a special effort to protect the complexion from freckles, tan and sunburn. They are at their best when the skin is fair and colorless, and any deviation from this is bound to detract. If the Titian or auburn-haired person has uncontrollable freckles it detracts a great deal from her beauty and makes certain of her becoming colors difficult to wear. White, browns and tan cannot but make freckles more noticeable. Otherwise these colors are the most becoming ones for this type.

The Titian or auburn types should never rouge, since it’s very desirable for this type to have a fair, colorless complexion. Rosy cheeks, as well as red and pink in any form, are not desirable as a color harmony with auburn or Titian hair.

About the same color suggestions apply to both the Titian and auburn blondes and to the Titian and auburn brunettes, save in the matter of shades. A person with auburn hair should wear deeper, richer shades than one with Titian hair. All brunettes wear to advantage the colors in the first half of the spectrum, and all blondes those in the second half. The following color suggestions apply to these four types, allowing for complexion deviations and the selection of shades to harmonize with the shades of the hair: