A VICTORIAN REVIVAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 April 1927, Page 17 (Supplement)

A VICTORIAN REVIVAL

NEW ROYAL RESIDENCE

PLANS for furnishing No. 145, Piccadilly, the Duke and Duchess of York’s home, are leading experts to predict a yet greater increase in the revival of Victorianism in our homes during the coming months. Before leaving for their New Zea land tour, the Duke and Duchess plan ned the greater part of the furnishing of their new residence, and everything will be in place by the time of their return. “Moving In.” The Royal couple's furniture will be “moved in” from the various places where it is housed now. Some things will come from Buckingham Palace, some from White Lodge, and others from 17 Bruton Street. The Duke and Duchess have a considerable amount of mahogany furniture, including some fine Victorian pieces, such as were out of favour a few years ago, but which are now’ in great demand. At "White Lodge they used a circular mahogany dining table, with chairs in keeping; but the new dining-room is larger, to enable suitable “Royal” entertaining, of a semi-State character, to be done. It is to be panelled with mahogany, and it is likely that a large oblong table will be used, the smaller one being put elsewhere for more “intimate” meals.

An ormolu mounted mahogany writing table, also, is used regularly by the Duchess, and this is to be given a place in her own sitting-room, which is being made from a room w T ith a glass-domed roof. New Lighting Scheme. One of the Duchess’s favourite shades of blue is to be the colour scheme of this room, and a special new lighting system is being used. This gives a soft, clear and well-dif-fused light, without glare or hard effects, and great results are expected from the experiment. The Duchess has a great number of pictures for her own room, and some folk find traces of revived late Victorianism even in this direction. The pictures include many water-colours and innumerable photographs, which the Duchess likes to have about her room in a manner reminiscent of 30 years ago rather than of the one-pic-ture-on-a-wall highbrowism of recent days. “The Duke’s Room.” The library at the Piccadilly establishment really will be to the Duke ■what the domed boudoir is to his wife,

and it will almost certainly come to be known as “the Duke’s room.” Mahogany furniture of a fairly iheavy type belongs here, with the tDuke’s big, practical and very workmanlike writing-table—a wedding present from his father—and his evergrowing collection of books. According to present arrangements, coal fires will be used in the rooms, and the grates are distinctly of the Victorian period. They are barred iron grates of the type we have been calling “hopelessly old-fashioned” during the recent modern craze for small, low, open fire grates. Pastel shades will be used in the drawing-rooms and in most of the bedrooms—pale blues, pinks and greys, separately and in unison. The Duchess of York is very fond of such tones in furnishing. Big, comfy chairs and settees, with all sorts of little homely touches, will abound and the Duchess’s friends are wondering whether two special furnishing items which aroused some criticism while the Royal couple were at White Lodge will find places in the new establishment. One is a dead black carpet which the Duchess selected for her bedroom during her early housekeeping days, and the others is a lounge settee upbolstered in a vivid, unusual red shade, which made a unique colour splash in the Victorianism of the White Lodge drawing-room. The Duke and Duchess, in common with Queen Mary, have not been converted to the modern fashion of coloured curtains. At their new house the front windows are expected to be curtained “all alike” to a very considerable extent, with long curtains of white net and lace, most, if not all, coming from Nottingham.