[Illustration:  A wing-chair with a painted frame is comfortable and harmonizes with painted furniture.]

[Illustration:  This simple slat-backed chair can be made most attractive at small expense with paint and a motif from the chintz for decoration.]

While the upper classes were having this beautiful furniture made for their use, the peasant class was serenely going on its way decorating its furniture according to its own ideas and getting charming results.  The designs were usually conventionalized field flowers done with great spirit and charm.  From the peasants of Brittany and Flanders and Holland have come down to us many beautiful marriage chests and other pieces of furniture which are simple and straightforward and a bit crude in their design and color, but which have done much to serve as a help and guide in our modern work.

The supply of painted furniture to-day is inspired by these different kinds of the great periods of decoration.  There are many grades and kinds in the market, some very fine, keeping up the old traditions of beauty, some charming and effective in style and color, but with a modern touch, and some very very bad indeed; “and when they are bad they are horrid.”  I have said a great deal in other chapters on this subject, but I cannot too often urge those of my readers who have the good fortune to live near one of our great art museums to study for themselves the precious specimens of the great days of genius.  It will give a standard by which to judge modern work, and it is only by keeping our ideals and demands high that we can save a very beautiful art from deteriorating into a commercial affair.

When selecting painted furniture, one can often have some special color scheme or decoration carried out at a little extra expense; and this is well worth while, for it takes away the “ready made” feeling and gives the touch of personality which adds so much to a home.  One must see that the furniture is well made, that the painting and finishing are properly done, and that the decoration is appropriate.  If the furniture is of one of the French periods, it should be one of the simpler styles and should be painted one of the soft ground colors used at the time, and the decoration should have the correct feeling—­flowers and birds like those on old French brocade or toile de Jouy or old prints.  The striping should be done in some contrasting color or in the wonderful brownish black which they used.  The design may be taken from the chintz or brocade chosen for the room, but the painting must be done in the manner of the period.  This holds true of any English period chosen, such as Adam furniture or the painted furniture of Sheraton.  There are several firms who make a specialty of this fine grade of furniture, but it is not made by the car load; in fact it is usually special order work.  The kind one finds most often in the shops is furniture copied from the simpler Georgian styles or simple modern pieces slightly