Something Quite New.

Manawatu Herald, 10 December 1895, Page 3

Something Quite New.

" Interiors of West End flats and mansions will soon be more taste* fully embellished than ever," says a well-known London art decorator to a Home paper's contributor recently, "for a new and beautiful material has been discovered, combined with a process which is the inventor's secret, for completely hardening, | and, so to speak, petrifying natural! flowers (and what is most wonderful, ' preserving their colours), and embedding them flush into the surface of a kind of liquid marble or alabaster, the whole receiving several coat» ings of a transparent polishing substance, and drying hard a,3 rock. In some n»w flats approaching complex tion there are some magnificienfc frizies and dadoes made by this method, with sunflowers, peonie, and dahlias ; and 1 lately saw in the inventor's warehouse a huge mantelpiece of red and white roses, to all appearance carved on yellowish marble, which is for the large salon of one of the biggest London hotels. Some beautiful table tops were also shown me, which resembled hand painted ivory, the patterns being marsh buttercups, primroses, tulips, &c, and a chess table, the squares of which were alternate red and * white camelias, intended for a wellknown songstress. The London residence of a wealthy American gentleman is entirely fitted throughoat with this new invention, the conservatory floor being studded with chrysanthemums of every known variety and colour. Another floor .ja_a deep water effect, with water lilies and newts and minnows swimming below the transparent surface. Walls composed of the blue and pink flowers, all alike in size and oolour, greatly resemble ordinary wall pftftfr, bufe are infinitely feflbtW