Lacquer—Oriental Methods—European Importations and Limitations—Prices—An Ambassador’s Report—Singerie, Chinoiserie and Rocaille—The Dutch Decadence—Interiors of Cornelis Troost—Mirrors—Wealth and Luxury of Dutch Merchants—Court Contrast—Tapestry—Brussels as a Centre of Art and Luxury—Eighteenth Century Furniture—The Empire Style in the Low Countries—Dutch Homes of the Nineteenth Century—The Maarken House and Furniture—Typical Farmhouse and Furniture—Country Seats and Town Houses—Hindeloopen Houses and Furniture—A Friesland House—Canal Boat Furniture—Dutch Love of Symmetry—Collectors and Collections.

So far little attention has been paid in these pages to lacquer, though important articles of household furniture that owed their beauty and value to this species of ornamentation have appeared in inventories and diaries under the designation of “vernish,” “japan” or “japanned.” Sometimes this work was referred to as “black” merely, as in the case of John Hervey’s “dear wife’s” boudoir.

The Oriental method of lacquering requires a vast amount of patience and skill. After the wood has been smoothly planed, it is covered with a thin sheet of paper or silk gauze. Over this is spread a thick coating of buffalo’s gall and powdered red sandstone. When dry, this is rubbed with wax and polished, or washed over with gum and chalk. The varnish is laid on with a flat brush. The article is now thoroughly dried, and again moistened and polished with a piece of soft slate, or the stalks of a special grass. The workman then repeats the process, giving it a second coating of lacquer, and again dries and polishes it. Sometimes as many as eighteen or twenty coatings are applied, but never less than three.

The lacquer used by the Chinese and Japanese is derived from the juice of the “varnish tree.” This juice, a natural secretion, is acrid, and soon hardens into a black resin. To obtain it, pieces of bamboo are inserted into the bark and allowed to remain all night, for the juice flows more freely at night than during the day. This is boiled with equal parts of oil obtained from the fruit of the mimusops elengi. The chief trees that yield this gum are the black varnish tree (melanorrhoea usitata) and the Japan varnish tree (rhus vernicifera).

There are grades in lacquer. Lacquer on a gold ground is the most highly prized; and the first examples of this kind that reached Europe were gifts to Dutch officials from Japanese princes. This sort of lacquer is seldom found on furniture, with the exception of delicate little boxes and occasionally plaques that were inserted into furniture.

Lacquered wares were brought into Holland, England and France in large quantities all through the seventeenth century, as the bills of lading (see page 292) show. We have seen that the European merchants sent out designs for forms and decorations of Oriental porcelain; and they did the same for carved ebony, teak and ivory, and especially lacquer. Many of the screens, clocks, bedsteads, cabinets, panels, tables, etc., of the period show unmistakable signs of Oriental attempts to supply European demands. In textiles also, especially in screen-fillings, and other textiles used in upholstery for couches, chairs and hangings, we frequently find views of Dutch towns and social life, indoors and outdoors.

The framework of large pieces of furniture was sometimes both carved on the edges, and the flat surfaces were lacquered. Sometimes the frames of screens were of carved rosewood (home-made), and the apertures were filled with genuine Eastern textiles. Tables of inlaid ivory and mother-of-pearl were also in general vogue.

Lacquered furniture was highly prized and very costly during the days of William of Orange, our “Dutch William.” “A grand Japan cabinet” (probably a wardrobe) in the bedroom of a Countess in 1675 was valued at £200 in present money. In 1698 an “Indian trunk” is listed at £35 in money of that date. In valuations that might be perhaps multiplied fivefold to-day in actual cash, apart from appreciation in art or sentimental value, we find also: a pair of India cut Japan screens, £60; a black bureau, £6; a Japan scrutoire, £60; a Japan cabinet, £35; and India-cut Japan frame and glasses, £10 10s.

We have seen from the complaint of the japanners in England that strong attempts had been made to imitate the home demands; and considerable success had rewarded the efforts of the artists and cabinetmakers. The trouble was that they could not obtain the proper lacquer or “vernish” in England, France or Holland for many years. The Dutch, holding such a dominant position in the East Indies, practically throughout the seventeenth century, naturally had the best chance to discover the secret of the constitution and manufacture of the far-famed varnish. They tried to reproduce the Oriental product of lacquer just as persistently as they did the porcelain with delft. Good as their imitations were, however, they could not produce a lacquer that could compete with the Japanese any more than the English could. They used native varnishes, therefore, and produced beautiful work which, alas! was not destined to last. The surface soon cracked, scaled off and left the framework decrepit and friendless,—relegated to the attic, kitchen or wood pile.

As Dutch enterprise led the way in imitations of Oriental wares, of porcelain in delft, so also imitations of lacquer first found fame in the Netherlands. A Dutchman named Huygens was famous for his japanned work early in the eighteenth century. He was called to France, and was probably largely instrumental in the invention or perfection of the celebrated Vernis Martin. This was a species of lacquer that beautifies many sumptuous examples of Louis Quinze furniture, and is highly prized by collectors.

The character of lacquered and other Oriental wares obtainable early in the eighteenth century may be gathered from the report of an ambassador to Pekin in 1721. Among other things he says:

“The most valuable furniture of lackered ware, viz., cabinets, chairs, tables, baskets, and other things of that sort, as also the richest porcelain ware, come from Japan. For when the Emperor sends any person to Japan in a public character, most of the princes and great men of the court seldom fail to engage him to bring them some of those things at his return....

“After the lackered ware of Japan, that of the province of Fokien, is looked upon as the best; but none of it comes to Pekin because the great lords of China oppress the merchants to a great degree and take their goods from them upon many frivolous pretences, without leaving them the least hopes of ever obtaining any payment.

“They have at Pekin a people dexterous enough at lackering, but their works fall short of those of Japan and Fokien, which may be attributed to the difference of climate; and it is for this reason that the lackered work made at Pekin is always much cheaper than the other. Nevertheless, the lackered work made at Pekin infinitely exceeds any work of that kind made in Europe.... The European merchants carry away from Canton raw silk; damasks wrought according to draughts furnished to them; wrought silks; lackered ware; tea, green and bohea; badians, a seed having a taste like aniseed; canes and china-ware, made according to models given them.

“For the rest they carry to China from Europe, and bring back from China, a very great variety of toys and different sorts of curiosities, upon which they make a very considerable profit; but these are so numerous that it is not possible to furnish a complete specification of them.”

During the eighteenth century Dutch and Belgian furniture, in common with English and German, humbly submitted to the dictates of the great French designers. The Singerie, Chinoiserie and Rocaille work of Watteau, Boucher, Meissonnier, Oppenord, Cressent, Huet, Gillot and others were welcomed and adapted to local tastes in the Low Countries. Many of the most beautiful cabinets and china-closets of the Régence and Louis Quinze period that are preserved in Continental museums owe their origin to the skilled workmen of Belgium, especially of the School of Lille. Many fine specimens of the decorative work of this period may be seen in the Lille Museum. A typical example from Liège appears in Fig. 46. This shows the use as an ornamental feature of the broken curve, the auricle, a more sober descendant of the style auriculaire. The use of this ornament encountered rabid opposition in Regency days in France, England and the Low Countries, but it forced its way into favour shoulder to shoulder with the Chinoiserie, Singerie and Rocaille ornamentation. This double-bodied cabinet is made for the preservation and display of delft and porcelain. Ledges at the top are also provided for urns and jars as decorative accessories.

It may be interesting to see what a typical china-cabinet contained at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1700, we note one of carved walnut with four doors. In the lower compartment there were twenty vases of red India ware, a porcelain vinaigrette, a cup of enamelled glass, a little horn cup and a multitude of miscellaneous curios. Another cabinet having two lower doors, a middle drawer and one glass door above, contained fine delft vases, two cups and saucers, a big faïence jug and two little ones, six big rare sea-shells and other Oriental curios.

Dutch art was now in its decadence; it had lost its pre-eminence. The French artists set the fashion. The painter who is commonly held responsible for the decadence is Gérard de Lairesse (Liège, 1641–1711). He shows all the technique of the old school, and arranges his compositions in accordance with the laws of Italian taste, but he is decidedly artificial. His contemporaries and successors are feeble imitators of the Great and Little masters, and those who have the greatest reputations are miniaturists and still-life painters.

For Dutch interiors we now have to go to the pastels of Cornelis Troost (Amsterdam, 1697–1750), whose compositions gained for him the name of the “Dutch Hogarth.” Two reproductions of interiors by this artist are shown in Plates LIV and LV. The chairs, tables, sideboards, candlestands, chandeliers, buffets and chimney-pieces in these pictures in nowise differ from those used in England during the early Georgian era.

Dutch taste ran to heaviness and over-loading in ornamentation. During the Louis Quinze period, Schubler was more in favour in wealthy Dutch houses, as he was in Germany, than were the French designers of a lighter touch.

A handsome example of Dutch carving of the early eighteenth century is shown in the mirror frame in Fig. 47. This is of carved and gilded wood, representing scrolls, leaves, flowers, a mascaron and a female figure issuing from one of the scrolls. “This kind of mirror, made to be hung upon the woodwork or tapestries of the rooms, is often of a rather heavy and inelegant execution,” writes a critic, who referring to this special example continues, “but in this specimen where the outlines are so accentuated the effect is quite happy. The hooks intended for the metal sconces in the lower part of the frame should be noticed.”

Holland was profiting so much by her mercantile ventures and, perhaps, unscrupulous trade dealings as to arouse bitter envy, jealousy and animosity. The famous despatch of Canning:

would have been investigated a century earlier by both English and French merchants if they could have forced their Governments’ hands. Thus in The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain Considered the following occurs:

“Trade with Holland: the balance paid us is thrice as much as we receive from either Portugal or Spain. But when we consider the great number of smuggling ships that are employed between this country and Holland, and the supply we have from them of pepper and all other sorts of India spice, with callicoes, muslins, India silks and romals, and other manufactures of India, coffee, tea, China-ware, and very great quantities of Hollands and fine lace, etc., it is apt to furnish the thinking part of mankind with other notions.”

The Dutch merchants were able to indulge all their artistic and luxurious tastes in furnishing their houses. Some of them were wildly lavish and ostentatious in interior decoration and furniture years before the frenzied finance of the Mississippi Scheme and South Sea Bubble, when valets became millionaires while they slept and senselessly squandered their gains in a month. As early as 1709, in Shaw’s Travels Through Holland, we read: “Glorious monuments of the excessive wealth acquired in trade are to be seen at Mr. Tripp’s and Pinto, the rich Jew’s houses; in this last is a room pav’d with ducatoons, or crown-pieces, and these laid edgewise. But, indeed, the whole new Heer Graff is fronted with houses like the palaces of princes, where glittering guildings, exquisite paintings, rich china, screens, gold, pearls, diamonds enchant you, and rival the apartments of monarchs in haughty magnificence.”

It is no exaggeration to say that the establishments of opulent merchants of the Low Countries at this period could match and sometimes even outshine those of princely courts. Life was very dull in Belgium at the court of the Austrian princess who ruled the Netherlands when George II came to the throne. Marie Elizabeth was forty-five when her brother gave her the rule of the Low Countries in 1725. She was very pious, and eschewed all gaiety. The only description of a festival given during her reign is that of the Fête de l’oiseau given in Brussels, October 10, 1729, on the occasion of the birth of Monseigneur le Dauphin (born September 4, 1729), and was written by the minister from France, Chaillon de Joinville, who arranged it, to the Marquis de Chauvelin. After the ball they went to supper at half-past ten, and we learn that “In the ‘grande gallerie’ there was a long table of ninety covers with two large buffets at the two ends, and in the balcony of the ‘gallerie’ there were four trumpeters and a drummer, who played all through supper; and there were eighteen instrumental players for the ball.”

The Flemish tapestries of the eighteenth century are of slight importance, for the great workshops of the Low Countries have now fallen into evil days. At the beginning of this century, Brussels has only eight manufacturers, fifty-three looms and about a hundred and fifty workmen, and by 1768 only one manufacturer is left—Jacques van der Borcht. The last loom perishes at his death in 1794. The Oudenarde looms are stilled for ever in 1772, and those of Ghent about the same time.

Flemish workmen are, however, still employed at Beauvais, of which Oudry becomes director in 1726; and their services are valued throughout Europe. Adrian Neusse of Oudenarde, a former workman at Beauvais, establishes a workshop at Gisors in 1703, and Jean Baert and his son one at Cambrai in 1724. Until 1738, when Boucher takes charge of them, Lille’s workshops are directed by Wernier of Brussels. When the first high-warp loom was established at Madrid in 1720, the first director was Jacques van der Goten, a tapestry-weaver of Antwerp, who aided in founding that of Seville in the same year; and the tapestry manufactory, founded by Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, employed workmen from Brussels in 1777–8.

During the eighteenth century, tapestry is put to a new use, which makes it especially important in connexion with the study of furniture. In the Middle Ages, we found it was a custom for the rich to throw over their carved chairs and benches, sumptuous pieces of tapestry and other handsome textiles; in this age we now find the weavers making covers for the backs and seats of chairs, sofas and screens, the patterns or pictures for which are specially designed. Throughout Europe, the drawing-rooms are furnished with these beautiful sets of tapestry furniture, always consisting of two sofas, armchairs and chairs. This new fashion practically made the fortune of the Beauvais manufactory. The most delicate pictures, artistically framed, were woven: landscapes, scenes from Æsop’s Fables, pastorals, emblems, mythological stories, baskets of fruit, baskets of flowers, garlands of flowers, bird cages, shepherds and shepherdesses, monkeys, swings, children playing, animals, birds, etc., etc.

The majestic style of Le Brun gives place to the airy charm of Watteau, Boucher and Van Loo. The Hunts of Louis XV, The Adventures of Don Quixote, The Gardens of Armida, Aurora and Cephalus, Venus on the Waters, Venus at the Forge of Vulcan, Cupid and Psyche, Children Playing, The Swing, Genii of the Arts, Endymion, Rustic Festivals, Fortune Tellers, Fishing, Rural Amusements, scenes from Molière’s comedies, Indian hangings, Chinese hangings and scenes in which monkeys appear in grotesque attitudes and costumes, supplant heroic triumphs and religious pictures as subjects for wall decorations.

Some of the last historical pieces that were made in Brussels were The Campaigns of the Duke of Marlborough, The History of the Duchy of Brabant and Victories of Prince Eugene.

The Flemings of the early eighteenth century still maintained their ancient eminence in Decorative Art. Their weavers were still sought after, and their craftsmen produced many pieces of carved furniture of the Régence and Louis Quinze periods that are still preserved and admired. The schools of Liège, Brussels and Lille (the latter just across the border in France, being practically still in Belgium, as originally it was) were famous for the high excellence of workmanship produced. Jacques Verberckt, who was born in Antwerp and died in Paris in 1771, was accepted at the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and executed or planned the greatest number of decorative sculpture made during the reign of Louis XV at Versailles. He was also employed by the Marquise de Pompadour to decorate her château of Bellevue. Verberckt worked with a delicate touch in marble, wood, or metal.

Brussels was an important centre of industry and art throughout the century. Its citizens included many men of wealth who took interest in art, science and literature.

In his Journey in the Year 1793 through Flanders, Brabant and Germany, the Rev. C. Este says: “The town is tolerably well built as to the walls of the houses; but their windows and doors are after the manner of the French. The lower windows are also deformed with iron bars, offensive even beyond the eye, as implying something wrong in the place, either from real danger, or from false fear.

“The buildings at Bruxelles compare in one point advantageously with Paris. For the houses having fewer floors, but three or four, generally have but one family under one roof.... The places for a traveller to see, if he has time, are the Archduke’s Château de Schoemburg (in the village of Lack), and the villa of M. Walkiers the banker. They are not half an hour’s drive from Bruxelles and close to one another; besides the way is through the Allée Verte, those beautiful vistas of elms and limes, where the canal goes to join the Scheldt....

“The Archduke’s château is a modern building, Ionic without, Corinthian within, with two fronts of 260 feet, the depth 150, with a central portico at the entrance and a bow in the centre behind. The effect of the building at a distance is gay and imposing enough; when close to it the effect is maimed by bad figures at the top of the building, and the pediment of the portico being filled by a clock, which seems fit only where the character of the building is appropriate, as at Inigo’s church at Covent Garden, to simplicity and use. The gate of approach, loaded with bad ornaments, cupids and what not, is at once lofty and trifling, elaborate and dull.

“In the internal distribution the best rooms are forty feet square—a dining-room 52 by 40—a chapel 27 by 22—and the state room a circle 54 feet in diameter; the dome is the ceiling of the room, and midway between the bottom and the top there is a small gallery on twelve Corinthian pillars. The floors in the other rooms are inlaid mixture, angular shapes of oak, mahogany and petrified cedar. In the circular room the floor is shewy, formed of various marbles. There are five windows, which should have five looking-glasses opposite—there are but two, with three glass doors, but not looking-glass. The looking-glasses are the manufacture of Venice. And these, eight feet by six, are among the largest ever blown there. For that is the Venetian process; not by the mould as in France and England.

“There are few objects of art. The only pictures are four large ones by De Lance of Antwerp. They are mythological subjects; of course, the worst in the world. Le Roi of Namur supplied the five feet full length of the Virgin in the chapel. It is not bad statuary, for it has, which is very rare, thought and emotion.

“The architect was Montoyer. He built also the Vauxhall in the park at Bruxelles. The house was begun in 1782—it was finished in 1788. A small temple and the pagoda, the only buildings in the garden, are also by him.’ The pagoda has eleven floors. And there, as in Kew, it may be considered as a well-placed trifle....

“The grounds the Archbishop keeps in his hands are between two and three hundred acres. There is an artificial water, fifty toises across and a quarter of a league long—the lawn sloping down to it from the house, with the uplands on the other side, and the fine woody hill form the prettiest scene.

“The adjoining villa of M. Walkiers, the banker, is another more pretty building by Montoyer, amidst the same little fertile scenery. The architecture is Ionic. With a loggio throughout the middle floor of one front, like an Italian villa, the ground plan of the house is about 150 feet by 50. There is a small grass plot before and behind with side walks, through very small trees, in half a dozen strait alleys: not one of the trees are worth five shillings. There is no gravel for the feet, no water for the eye, and the inclosure is a flimsy two-feet hedge which a child may either pass through or step over.”

The new style of ornamentation of the Régence and Louis Quinze periods, with its broken curves, auricles, rococo and rocaille work, was carried to greater extremes in Germany and Holland than in France. The school of Borromini, Oppenord and Meissonier carried everything before it, in spite of great opposition on the part of those who clung stubbornly to the traditions of Renaissance art. Carved panelling adorned the walls of rooms, and ceilings, picture and mirror frames, chairs, beds, tables, etc., all submitted to the new designs for chisel-work. A room with furniture of the early eighteenth century is illustrated in Plate LVI. This is in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the woodwork and painted ceiling come from an old Dutch château. The chairs, with their carved frames and stretchers, were in vogue in the last years of Louis XIV and under the Regency. The cabinet with its graded top for the accommodation of porcelain vases is characteristic of the period. The frames of the mirror and picture and the mantelpiece are also fine examples of Decorative Art of the days immediately after British soldiers used such bad language in the Low Countries. In passing it may be noticed that Marlborough’s campaigns in the Netherlands had considerable influence on English taste of the day and forming the “Queen Anne” style, by familiarizing British officers with the Decorative Arts of the United Provinces. The Peace of Utrecht (1713) left the Netherlands free to pursue the arts of peace, which they did, so far as internal decoration is concerned, in the wake of the foe they had so bitterly combated. We may note here that the richly carved table on which the Peace of Utrecht is said to have been signed is preserved in the Antiquarian Museum of Utrecht.

The course of Dutch and Flemish furniture during the rest of the eighteenth century tamely follows the channels of French design.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Empire style was in vogue in Holland, as it was throughout Europe. When the Town Hall on the Dam in Amsterdam was presented by the city to the King of Holland, Louis Napoleon, in 1808, the Royal apartments were fitted up in the Empire style, and these hangings and furniture may be seen to-day. A great deal of Empire furniture is scattered through the museums of Belgium and Holland, as well as in the castles and mansions of the nobles and merchants who followed the fashions. A trace of the Empire style is found in the following description of the palace of Laeken, the residence of the royal family, near Brussels, by Robert Hill (Sketches in Flanders and Holland, 1816):

“The apartments had very little of royal magnificence about them: there were no pictures. A few pieces of indifferent tapestry, pier glasses economically put up in three pieces each, and tables, chairs, etc., which might only be called handsome, made up all that I recollect of their furniture. This palace has undergone strange vicissitudes. It was built for an Austrian archduchess; in one of the rooms a sky blue canopied bed was shown, which had belonged to the late Empress Josephine, had next been occupied by Maria Louisa, and, shortly before my visit, had been slept in by the Queen of the Netherlands.”

Mr. Hill was not greatly impressed with the Dutch house of the middle class. He says:

“I saw few things about their furniture and household arrangements worth noticing. The lower parts of their houses were commonly lined with glazed Dutch tiles, and stoves made of the same kind of clay were as commonly used to warm their apartments....

“There are two singularities about the houses of the Dutch which must not be forgotten. The first is that every country seat from the merchant’s domain to the little peddling tradesman’s smoking-box, though surrounded perhaps by nothing but marshes, damps and duckweed, is almost sure to bear on its front or over its entrance the words Land Lust (Country Delight), or Land Zight (Country Prospect), Belle Vue, or some other title expressive of the beauties of the situation, or the comforts and ornaments which are to be found within. The other is that the windows of these Land Lusts and Zights, as well as those of houses in the midst of towns, are generally furnished with little looking-glasses, which, projecting from their sides, command every passing object. These are by no means to be considered as ornamental, but they are so placed (sometimes two or three on each side) that they indulge the curiosity of their owners without putting them to the expense of showing themselves in return.”

He also notes the peculiar custom of breakfasting and dining in bedrooms. “At the country box of one of the most respectable tradesmen in Holland,” he writes, “I dined with his family in the principal room, which had beds concealed behind parts of its wainscoting.” This was in Rotterdam. He says: “At the end of this garden stood a pretty little summer residence, among whose lower apartments was a kitchen with furniture that displayed all the brightness and neatness for which the culinary arrangements of the Dutch have been celebrated, and above which was a large bay windowed room in which we dined. A natural inquiry respecting bed-chambers was here answered by opening parts of the wainscot, behind which were concealed canopies of the master, mistress and their children.”

The homes of Holland changed little during the century, and the cottages, farmhouses and homes of the peasants may be said to have changed not at all. Take, for instance, the fishing village of Maarken, in the Zuyder Zee, of which Esquiros writes:

“Most frequently the same room serves at once as bedroom, kitchen and storehouse for the fishing utensils. Some houses, however, have a second and separate room, called here the saloon, in which furniture and clothes are kept, but that is almost aristocratic luxury. The rooms which are flush with the ground have no ceiling, and communicate with the garret, over which the tile or thatch roof rises at right angles. The houses are equally deficient in chimneys as a rule, but before the principal window there is a large flat stone surrounded by a row of bricks. A piece of iron is fastened at the back of this stone, against which the fire is kindled. An opening in the roof allows exit to the smoke, which, before emerging, spreads through the loft, where the nets are dried. Only thirty houses are remarkable for possessing chimneys. Several times a year the interior is cleaned and whitewashed. A table surrounded by very low chairs, an old escritoire loaded with pretty china, an eight-day clock, milk tubs whose copper rings shine like gold, produce in the houses of the island an alliance of facts rarely found among other races, namely, of cleanliness with poverty. This taste for china, old glass, curtains and flowered counterpanes is a delicate feature in the Batavian character. Art sits down by the side of Misery at the fireside, which it enlivens with a consolatory beam.”

Plate LVII, entitled In Bruitlaen, by Artz, in the Rijks Museum, shows the modern artist’s conception of a peasant room and furniture. First we notice a large kas or armoire, with heavy ball feet and pieces of china arranged on the top. More china adorns the chimney-shelf, and the chimney-piece with its valance is characteristic. The heavy carved beams, the windows with small leaded panes decorated with coats-of-arms, the tiled floor spread with a carpet, give an air of comfort to the room. The chairs are of the four-backed variety, the table is square, the stool has turned legs and stretchers, and there is a Bible on a stand and a Friesland clock on the wall.

The old farmhouse of which the modern traveller sees so many examples, with its red-tiled or thatched roof visible beneath its sentinel poplars, usually consists of a large living-room, a kitchen, a cheese-room, a dairy, two small bedrooms in the garret, a big cow-stable at the back, and an outside kitchen called the “baking-house.”

A native writer says:

“The ‘baking-house’ is often used as a living-room in summer, which is more cheerful than the solemn apartment into which the visitor is invariably ushered. A wide chimney lined with tiles stretches nearly across one side of this room; but the open fire on the hearth has long ago disappeared and given place to an ugly stove. Quaint brass fire-irons hang behind it, and on either side is an armchair, differing from its humbler brethren only in the possession of wooden arms. If there is a baby in the family, it is likely to be reposing in a cradle with green baize curtains as near as possible to the fireplace, in defiance of all laws of health. Two or three large cupboards, sometimes handsomely carved, always kept well polished, stand against the whitewashed walls. One of them generally has glass doors in the upper part; and on its shelves the family china—often of great value—is exposed to view. Unfortunately, these heirlooms in old families have been largely bought up by enterprising Jews. Sometimes, however, sentiment has proved stronger than the love of money, and the farmer has not parted with his family possessions. In a corner of the room a chintz curtain, or sometimes a double door, shows where the big press-bed is—an institution of pre-hygienic times which, to the peasant mind, has no inconveniences whatever. In the middle of the room a table stands on a carpet; and, as people take off their shoes at the door and go about in their thick woollen stockings, neither it nor the painted floor ever shows signs of mud. Another table stands near one of the windows, of which there are two or three. The linen blinds so closely meet the spotless muslin curtains, which are drawn stiffly across the lower panes on two horizontal sticks, that a stray sunbeam can hardly make its way into the room, even if it has been able to struggle through the thick branches of the clipt lime-trees that adorn the front of the house. On one of the tables a tray stands, with a hospitable array of cups and saucers, teapot, etc., and is protected from the dust by a crochet or muslin cover. The huge family Bible, with its huge brass clasps, has an honourable place, often on a stand by itself. Rough woodcuts or cheap prints, and a group of family photographs, which do not flatter the originals, are hung on the walls. The framed and glazed sampler, worked in wools by the farmer’s wife in her young days, usually makes a dessus de porte. The alphabet is the principal part of this extraordinary work of art; but it bears various other figures, which, on patient investigation, appears to have some resemblance to certain birds and flowers.”

The country home of wealth is usually built of small, hard, reddish-brown bricks resembling those used in the Elizabethan houses in England. The front entrance is often embellished with a handsome pediment and a stone loggia and steps. Flower beds, canals and woods surround the house, which has a dignified and attractive air. It is no less so within, for many Dutch houses, both in the country and city, are beautifully finished. The woodwork, whether of oak or mahogany, is often exquisitely carved and highly polished, and consists of broad staircases with ornate banisters, doors, panelled walls, mantelpieces and mirror frames. Many of the doors and windows are decorated with carvings of garlands of fruits, flowers and other devices, according to the period in which the house was built. In some of the old houses the walls are still hung with the old gilt leather of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Suburban houses as well as country seats bear fanciful names; and on the outskirts of The Hague, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and other large cities you may read Lust en Rust (Pleasure and Repose), Buiten Zorg (Without Care), Myn Rust (My Repose), Mon Bijou (My Jewel), Rosen Lust (Rose Pleasure), Honigbij (Honey Bee), Mijn Lust en Leven (My Pleasure and Life), Vriendschap en Gezelschap (Friendship and Sociability), and other such names. These retreats are often covered with creepers, and are situated in the centre of a lawn made gay with flower beds, arbours and sometimes strange ornaments of painted clay—gnomes trundling wheelbarrows, curious vases, windmills, etc., etc.

The town houses and such country houses as are built on reclaimed land are constructed on piles. They begin to build in Holland by digging to the depth of two or three feet. This excavation soon fills with water. Piles are then driven into the ground, and the ends are cut off evenly; and on this level surface beams of oak are laid. The back and front of the house are not added until long after the roof is laid on, so that the air may pass through and dry the walls thoroughly. The houses are lightly constructed of brick, iron or wood, with outer casings of stone or marble, intended for show and not for solidity. At the back of the house there is usually a little garden, to which it is necessary to bring every year earth and gravel to replace the soil that the water has carried away.

Frequently the Dutch town house consists of two apartments; for land is dear, and so are house rents in the cities. The lower apartment is called benedenhuis, which comprises a cellar and the ground floor; while the second apartment, called bovenwoning, is composed of the first and second floors and a garret. Each apartment has its separate entrance.

The houses are deeper than they are wide, and the ordinary arrangement consists of a drawing-room in the front, a dining-room in the back, and a dark room in the middle. The latter is the family sitting-room, particularly in winter evenings, for its complete isolation from the outside protects the inhabitants from the cold air. Of late years this middle room has become less popular, and every room in recently built dwellings contains one or two windows. The houses are comfortable, and are heated throughout.

The outsides of the houses, with their cheerful white cornices on windows and doors, ornamental roofs and large windows with Flemish shades and adorned with blooming plants and boxes of flowers, give an impression of comfort and prosperity.

These homes are comfortably or luxuriously furnished, according to the purses and tastes of the dwellers, with the ordinary modern furniture; but every prosperous family possesses a few inherited pieces of furniture. Nearly every home contains one kas, if not more, and a small collection of porcelain, earthenware and silver. Oriental goods from the Dutch colonies are not rare.

One peculiarity of the Dutch home is the arrangement for storing and washing household linen. From the moment of a little girl’s birth her female relatives begin to collect the household linen she will have as a portion of her dowry; and the large cupboards and presses of every well-to-do home are stored with linen and damask. As the family washing is done but four times a year, great hampers are used as receptacles for the soiled linen. These are lowered by ropes from the cranes at the top of the house, placed in the canal boats, and carried to the meadows, where they are washed in the canals and laid on the grass. There they are sprinkled by means of curiously shaped wooden spoons with long handles that are dipped in the canal. The clothes, again packed in the hampers, are carried to the house, where they are mangled. The mangle and the napkin-press are found in every house, and the press is not unfrequently a decorative piece of furniture.

One of the most interesting provinces in Holland is Friesland—as yet unspoiled by tourists and rich in old buildings, quaint villas and picturesquely costumed inhabitants. Workum and Hindeloopen (celebrated for its gaily-painted houses) both contain some good buildings of the seventeenth century; while at Leeuwarden, the residence of the governors of Friesland (of the Nassau-Dietz family, and ancestors of the reigning house of Holland), the Frisian Museum, with its fine collection of antiquities and porcelain, repays more than a brief visit. Here are two rooms from Hindeloopen, correctly furnished; and many houses with similar rooms still exist in that town. The walls of the smaller room are encased with blue and white Dutch tiles, ornamented with Scriptural or other subjects. The floor is laid with red and brown tiles. A cabinet containing articles of porcelain and curious little silver ornaments hangs upon the wall; and, hidden behind the painted woodwork, is a bed, like a bunk in a steamer, to which access is gained by means of a small and gaily painted ladder. The tables, chairs and other furniture are of simple form, and are painted with bright flowers on a cream or white background. The other room is similarly furnished, and has a number of wax figures of men, women and children dressed in the Hindeloopen costume.

The Rijks Museum also contains a Hindeloopen room with characteristic furniture.

We may, perhaps, be permitted to quote an extract from On Dutch Waterways, by G. Christopher Davies, as a vivid picture of the modern Frisian home.

“We crossed a tiny little bridge, over a tiny moat, passed through a tiny and spotlessly clean yard to the back door. The front door of a Dutch house in the country is for ornament only, and not for use, and is rarely opened save to be cleaned and painted afresh. This house was the most minutely clean and unique any of us had ever seen, and was a perfect and rich museum of the wealthier side of Frisian life. In the passage by the house door was a well, and the polish on its mahogany cover was only exceeded by the glisten on the copper bucket, with brass bands, and the shining brass chain which took the place of the ordinary rope. The floor of the hall as well as the doors leading from it looked as if they had only been painted yesterday.

“The kitchen, the living-room on the ground floor, the hall, a passage and a staircase were lined with Dutch tiles, those in the passage and dark staircase and corridors being white, or with a pattern or figure of an animal painted on them. At the foot of the stairs were hung several wooden bowls, painted with cupids and flowers in many colours. Climbing up the narrow staircase, we were ushered into the sacred front room, which would rarely be used for any purpose but show. It was the museum of the house, where a collection of antique treasures were preserved in a place which was worthy of them.

“The room was so jealously guarded from daylight by drawn inner and outer blinds that we could see nothing distinctly until one shutter was opened, and as we crept about cautiously over the highly polished oaken floor we had an uneasy feeling that we ought to have taken our shoes off, and, in fact, did debate in whispers whether we should do so or not.

“Three sides of the room were completely lined with tiles. Up to the height of six feet or so the tiles were adorned with various Biblical subjects, the Dutch conception of which was, in many instances, extremely comical. Above this dado the tiles were plain white, except that a blue bordering went round the oaken beams which supported the roof. On the fourth side was a range of magnificent oak cabinets, with lattice or fretwork doors, through the interstices of which the contents were visible. These consisted of rare old china and antique silver articles of every kind, spoons, teapots, pins, brooches, and even a silver birdcage.

“Many of the things were so curious that we could assign neither use nor ornament to them, and much of the interest of the collection was lost to us for want of some one to explain the uses of what we saw. Probably the following paragraph, which I have just seen in a weekly newspaper, may give the true explanation of the small size of some of the objects: The rich Dutch burghers of old believed very much in teaching children by means of their playthings, and used to give them elaborate dolls’ houses furnished with utensils in solid silver that worked perfectly, and were exact models of those in daily use in the family. There were silver lamps and coffee pots, dishes, spice boxes and everything in miniature. Thus the little Dutch girls were housewives from their babyhood.

“Along the top of this rare old piece of furniture was suspended a row of porcelain plates. About the room were curiously carved and designed chairs and tables, some of the latter finely inlaid; and on the wall I particularly noticed mirrors with tortoiseshell frames. The waning light left us too little time to examine the contents of the room in detail, but we all thought it the choicest thing of the kind we had ever seen in public or private.”

In a study of Dutch furniture the canal boat should not be overlooked. More than two centuries ago an English traveller asked if there were not more people living on the water in Holland than on the land. In that country canals lead from town to town and village to village, and boats perform transport service. Vegetables, fruits, flowers and dairy produce, flour and all kinds of merchandise are transported in boats; furniture is moved from house to house by means of the canal boats, and passengers are also carried.

Many families know no other home than the trekschuyt: cradled on the drowsy waters the inmates grow to manhood and womanhood, and die in these floating homes.

The traveller in Holland never fails to be interested in the canal boats that are constantly arriving and departing in the grachten of the large cities; but he rarely sees their interiors. The following description by Alphonse Esquiros shows how these canal homes are furnished, and gives us an idea of the life spent there:

“Along nearly the whole length, which is about thirty feet, runs a box or wooden house, frequently painted green; the roof, on which the sailors walk to perform sundry operations, being covered with a layer of pounded cockle shells. This house is divided into two compartments or cabins; the larger one, situated near the prow, is common to passengers and luggage. Here, during the winter, the worthy people, shut up as in a box, swim along in a cloak of tobacco smoke, which relieves the tedium of the voyage. In summer the wooden shutters are removed, and the hatch is raised from the orifice by which the travellers descend. The second compartment is the cabinet, called in Dutch the roef, which is entered through folding doors. The second cabin is small, but fitted up with some degree of taste. The windows, four or six in number, are glazed and have red or white curtains, according to the season. In the centre is a table with a copper vessel containing fire, and another smaller one to receive cigar ash, both cleaned and polished in a manner only found in Holland. Add to this, to complete the furniture, a mat, a looking-glass, and, in winter for the ladies, a foot-warmer, called the stoef, containing a small earthenware vessel with two or three lumps of lighted peat in it. Along two sides of this cabin run cushioned benches, on which the travellers sit down opposite to each other. Sometimes there are on a shelf a few volumes belonging to the boat and forming a floating library at the service of the studious passengers. The whole national character is revealed in this simple and minute attention to comfort. At the bows, the space not occupied by the cabinet is filled with merchandise, bales, and barrels; while the poop is left to travellers who wish to take the fresh air, and the helmsman, who steers and smokes the while with the regularity of a steamer....

“On the trekschuyten floats old Holland, with its language, manners and conscientious and powerful originality. There are some trekschuyten in which you pass the night; at about six in the evening, in the event of the master being polite (and we never met any who were not so), he invites you to take tea. You then see a little cabinet produced, containing cups, sugar-basin, and teapot of black earthenware, which is not inelegant. The kettle is placed on a species of stove covered with Chinese designs, and containing a vessel filled with burning peat. At night the roef is divided into two parts—a saloon and a small sleeping-room, of which the curtains are raised. A common bed, occupying the entire width of the cabin, and on which men and women sleep honestly side by side, invites you to take your share of the universal calm and rest of nature. This bed is composed of a mattress and counterpane, and you lie down on it full dressed. During this period the boat continues its noiseless voyage through the waters, which divide in a silver furrow on either side the prow.”

The Dutchman has always been famous for his clinging to cleanliness, order and symmetry. Cleanliness in the house and order in the garden, with its clipped trees and hedges of formal designs and stiff flower beds, still persist. The Dutch house of the present day is described by the Rev. J. Ballingal In the North Holland Polders as follows: “Their houses are as often furnished in very modern style, though the furniture is sure to be solid and good. They have the utmost contempt for anything sham and flimsy. In their jewellery, of which a great deal is worn, they would never think of buying false diamonds or imitation coral. Their houses are models of neatness and cleanliness, but there is no trace of aesthetic feeling. Symmetry is admired above everything. Trees planted round the house at equal distances, trimmed to an exact height, and whitewashed to a certain height of the trunk, windows and doors to correspond, gates freshly painted, and gravel walks without a foot-print—that is the country ideal. There is a story of a Boer who fancied a piano would be a handsome addition to his best room, and having bought one and got it placed, he returned a few weeks after to the piano warehouse. ‘Did the instrument give satisfaction?’ the dealer anxiously inquired. Oh, yes! yes! I’ve no complaint to make, for nobody has even touched it. What annoys us is we don’t like the look of it in the room. It is not symmetrisch, so I’ve come to buy another, exactly the same, to stand in the opposite corner.’ Such a story is credible enough when one sees the exactly similar way in which, through a large district, houses are built, and trees planted round them, as if every detail were compulsory. The love of cleanliness, too, has its extravagances, as, for instance, in the neighbourhood we speak of we once enjoyed the comic spectacle of a man sitting astride on the ridge of his house, with a pail slung round his neck, scrubbing away at the tiles.”

Holland has not escaped the present taste for the collection of antiquities; but in that country where there is so deep a love of home, and where the peasants guard their possessions with the same tenacity and affection as the rich do their heirlooms, the collector is only rewarded after long years of patient search. However, many of the wealthy merchants and travellers, who are spending the well-earned afternoon and evening of their lives in their country seats near Arnhem, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Leyden, Dordrecht, Middelburg, Maestricht and other large cities and small towns, are able to show rare and interesting relics of the past. A house of a rich traveller will reflect naturally enough the wanderings as well as the taste of its owner. The spoils of Java, Dutch Guiana, the West Indies and other colonies, not to mention those of Egypt, Spain and Italy, adorn his rooms and render his cabinets highly interesting.

As a rule his study and the boudoirs of his wife and daughters, his drawing-room with its adjoining conservatory, his library and his bedrooms are furnished in the latest French taste. The dining-room is frequently painted in pale green, and here are displayed in the cupboards vitrines, cabinets, and on the hanging shelves his family treasures, consisting of curious and beautifully engraved glass, silver, and choice sets and individual pieces of porcelain. If, however, as is often the case, the owner is the collector, then he takes especial delight in the “antique-room,” which he has fitted up in the style of a cabinet of the seventeenth century. The general impression of this apartment is brown, derived not only from the panelled ceiling, high wainscot and carved chimney-piece, but from the wall hangings of leather with its raised patterns of faded gold and the high-backed carved furniture.

Brightness is contributed by the array of brass, porcelain, delft, rugs, cushions and tiled fireplace, with its fine brass andirons, bellows and other equipments. On the ledge of the wainscot handsome jars and vases and other specimens of porcelain and delft are symmetrically arranged, and on the wall hang plaques and brass sconces. The room receives additional light from old brass chandeliers. A cabinet full of curios, a large kas, a Bible on a stand, a spinning-wheel, foot-warmers, pipes and old kitchen utensils are sure to be found here; and to these articles we may add a carved napkin-press, a mangle, an old carved board and rolling-pin for doing up fine linen, and an ancient carved, gilded and painted sled.

Collecting is not confined to the individual; for the study of old furniture and other antiquities that contribute so great an aid to the historian in constructing the social life of the past and so great an aid to the artist, architect and decorator, is widespread in Holland. The great museums of the large cities contain many superb and valuable specimens, and display them with great taste. In some cases whole rooms have been removed from some old palace or stadhouder’s house with their original ceilings, chimney-pieces, hangings and furniture; and, again, entire rooms have been fitted up in the characteristic style of some province whose individual manners and customs are fast disappearing. Many of the small towns have a collection of local antiquities, which are, as a rule, attractively displayed; for the members of the numerous Dutch antiquarian societies take great pride in the history of their country. Sometimes, as in the case of the “Museum van Kunstnyverheid” in Haarlem, the collection embraces the artistic industries of ancient and modern times. This museum contains a particularly fine collection of kitchen utensils and other articles and furniture familiar to us in the pictures of Jan Steen, Maes and other Dutch masters.

The museums of Belgium are equally rich in old furniture, tapestries and other treasures.