NEW LIGHT UPON LAMPSHADES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19846, 21 May 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

NEW LIGHT UPON LAMPSHADES

There is a refreshing originality about the latest types of lampshade. With a plain shade of parchment for the base, various ornamentations arc superimposed according to the character of the room. Small Japanese prints, either authentic Hiroshiges or Utamaros or alternatively excellent colour reproductions are pasted upon the parchment which takes on a new and refreshing beauty when the light is lit, the paper being thin enough to allow the illuminant to filter through without any of the depth of tone being obscured. A single print, surrounded perhaps by an inch framing done in sepia, is all that is required for a shade of ordinary size. Old maps taken from early books of travel also make delightful shades. They should bo pasted for greater strength upon a muslin foundation, and heightened, if need be, with a watercolour wash to give additional interest. Old-fashioned charts and maps also afford material for shades of different sizes, the borders of which are best finished off by means of a flat braid or ribbon. From America hail sets of decorative medallions, specially designed for pasting on parchment. Some represent ships in full sail, others are silhouette portraits, others are flower and fruit. After being carefully pasted on, the whole is varnished, so that the ground of the medallion may take on the parchment tint.