WHERE FAIRY TALES LIVE

Otago Witness, Issue 3861, 13 March 1928, Page 77

WHERE FAIRY TALES LIVE

By

Winn Shepherd.

(Special fob the Otago Witness.) In fairy tales the best royal families have their palaces created for them by the wave of a wand out of rosebuds, jewels, or sea shells. That is why, perhaps, there is a pang of disappointment in the first glimpse of a real royal palace. Could there ever have been' a romance upon these acres of parquet flooring, slippery and repellent? Would it be possible for even princes and princesses to be gay and gallant in those vast apartments where one’s heart’s dearest dwindles to the size of an ant a few paces from one’s side, dwarfed by the scale of colossal double doors and heroic statuary? Alas! It simply proves once more that outside fairyland kingship is a sober and exacting profession, and that royalty, like ourselves, is tied very often to the furniture and decorative schemes bequeathed it by its ancestors. Yet there are two royal palaces in Spain which contain rooms decorated in a material so unique that they suggest, as no splendour can, the loveliness conjured up by a magician’s wand. Not with flower petals, though with all the vivid shades of blossoms ; not with jewels nor shells, though with all their glow and iridescence these rooms are decorated with porcelain. Dating from th e middle of the eighteenth century, they were designed and decorated for Carlos 111 of Spain. This King, who scoured all Europe to find workers to beautify his palaces, established a porce- ' lain factory in one of the royal parks, and ) although it did not long survive after his death, these two rooms still exist to prove how exquisite was its work. In the Royal Palace at Madrid the porcelain room is called after the Italian who designed it, the “ Gasparini ” room, its ceiling is of porcelain with a marvellously intricate design, and on th’e walls are porcelain panels showing delightful little cupids who fly, perch, and tumble amid urns, garlands, and streamers, while nosegays of gay flowers, cockl e shells, and quaint masks of animal faces frame porcelain pictures in low relief of mythological subjects. The colours range from faint ivory tones through flame and orange to bright leaf greens, with touches of gold faded almost to primrose shade. Outside Madrid, in a stretch of lovely fertile country of orchards and strawberry fields which lie like an oasis on the barren plains of Castile, is the little summer palace of Aranjuez. Here is the second porcelain room, which, although the work of another Italian, has been inspired throughout by Chinese influences. The ceiling shows sprawling, exotic designs of long-winged birds and huge petalled flowers, the wall panels have grave figures of mandarins solemnly contemplating their cannonball trees ’and pagoda, while scattered about the room are vases and jars of real Chinese porcelain to stress the Oriental note. The background of all this decoration is a faintly lustrous pink, like a pink pearl, and set into the walls are old Spanish mirrors which reflect with a cool green tone like still water. Not a thought of the heavy weight of royal duties haunts these rooms, no echoes of pacts and treaties, no clash of struggles . or grinding of political machinery. Here dances Cinderella in her little glass slippers, Puss swaggers through in his Cordovan leather boots, and th e Beast’s old skin is kept as a rug upon the floor where the Prince and Beauty walk.