Haste, and the crowding together of two or three different sets of workmen in the same place and time in which gilding is under execution, are conducive to wastefulness and inefficiency. The skilled decorator will, therefore, make due provision to enable his gilders to pursue their work with the facilities insured by freedom from interruption and such like inconveniences.

162. Fig. 59 presents us with a door proposed to be finished in white and gold. When the paint is thoroughly hard, the parts to be gilded are judiciously selected. We may, in passing, remark that the transom light in the engraving bears a heraldic design, which should be embossed on the glass.

The members to be gilded are the fillet, bed moldings, and labyrinth or fret a, b, c, d; the key block or truss with the bed molding and two bands forming side scrolls e,f,g; the fillet and bead of the architrave h, i,j; the raised ornament on the spandrel panels k, to be heightened on the edges only; the transom-bar cornice, fillets, and bed moldings l, m, n; the abacus and volutes o, p on cap of pilasters, the stalks of the acanthus and the edges of the serrated leaf are also to be gilded; the fillet or neck moldings q; the bead molding in the pilaster panel r; the base or torus moldings; the door-joint strip with central and side strips t; the door panels u, v; the chamfer w. After gilding, a weak parchment size is applied, care being taken not to run over on the surface of the white paint.

Fig. 59.

163. Another design, in which the stencil plate and hand penciling may be utilized together with the happiest effect, appropriate to a boudoir or small drawing room is, in the hands of an intelligent artisan, readily producible.

The door itself is enriched with shelf and ornamental backing, giving scope in style for simple stenciling or hand-painted ornament. If finished in pale blue, the most desirable color for the more prominent members of the architrave, is a deeper shade of broken blue tone, i. e., blue slightly tinted with burnt sienna or lake, to impart warmth and obviate too crude a distinction between door and wall. The panels might be a broken white or a subdued cream tint, or if a bolder contrast be aimed at, a decided pink tone, composed of crimson lake, burnt sienna, and white lead, the lake alone, as an addition to white, being too vivid for the purpose. The molding of the panels may, in this case, be white or maroon, either extreme being effective. The free flowing and quasi-natural character of the ornament demands a rendering in maroon upon a pink ground, but blue green, not too deep in tint, may, if more closely approaching the general style of ornamentation employed, be preferable. Vases suggesting the main design may be put in a maroon tint enriched with gold, the lines in the panels being also rendered in maroon or a light shade of brown, to harmonize more equably with the ground surface. A dot of gold in the center of each flower emphasizes the general effect. Details of the enrichment of cornice and entablature may be in gold and maroon, or white and gold, according to the choice made for the panel moldings. The dado may, if done in wood, be treated similarly, and all added ornament should partake of the same general character as the door panels. The skirting should be brown, or at any rate much deeper in tone than other portions of the work.

164. Another method of treatment suited to a bedroom could not fail of yielding happy results, in color effect. Let the wall paper, for instance, be a pale cream ground with a pattern of pale greens, pale yellows (approaching ocher in hue), and pink; below this a dado of purple tone with a suitable band on a green ground. Now let the outer architrave be a pale creamy blue, composed of white burnt sienna and Prussian blue, the detail cut in with brown or Indian red. Then paint the panels in a green tint several shades darker than the circumjacent colors, imparting to the stiles and architraves colors none too light, but relieved by the addition of burnt sienna insufficient in quantity to decidedly stain, but enough to subdue the brilliancy of the green. From what has been already stated in this paper, it may seem hazardous to place green and blue together. Experience often, however, modifies theories. If, in this case, a practical man judiciously combines these colors, he will certainly prove the pleasing nature of the combination. Next reproduce the foliated design and the lines on the panels in a warm, straw color, compounded of ocher, chrome, and sienna, reduced to the proper tint by admixture with white. On the stiles which, like the architraves, are of creamy pale blue, place some maroon or Indian red lines corresponding to each panel and run the moldings in white, or, reversing the method, run the lines in white on the pale blue ground and define the moldings in maroon, reduced in strength of shade when the whole member is run in solid. Finish the skirting in appropriate tones. Stenciled designs may be made a ground for hand painting in natural tones, by putting it on the work in some gray tint and proceeding as if the whole had been rendered with the pencil exclusively. Flowers and leaves, stems and sprays and vases may all be admirably and with surprising facility rendered, while a butterfly or some such suitable specimen of insect life, here and there added, gives the design a winsome effect.