Gen. Rathbone: Mr. President — I move that the thanks of the association be returned to Mr. Chapin for his able and interesting and very exhaustive paper upon the subject of stove ornamentation, and that the same be printed in our proceedings. Carried.
Mr. John S. Perry: Mr. President — We feel very much indebted to Mr. Chapin, or any other gentleman who tells us of something we did not know before. We have heard a great deal said from time to time about meretricious ornamentation, and about nickel-plate open stoves being a meretricious ornament. I have not yet heard any gentleman explain the reasons for so considering it, and I would like to ask Mr. Chapin, as an artist, why a nickel plated ornament upon a stove is meretricious and out of place.
Mr. Chapin: In the brief time I had to give to the subject embraced in my paper, I endeavored to convey the idea by saying that the eye first catches the fire pot. Like the highlight in a picture, the grate or open fireplace is the first thing that catches the eye. The moment the eye tires of that it should run off to something that is quiet and subdued, as well as useful, because the fire is trying. I am speaking now from an artistic point of view. If the eye runs off to that which presents a glare and glitter, it has a bad effect. It disturbs and bewilders the eye, and, instead of resting the eye, it scatters attention, and the eye goes back to the original source of attraction, which is the fire. This becomes painful. There is nothing of rest in it, and hence we have called it “meretricious ornamentation.”
Mr. Perry: Then I understand that the element of a fire in a stove is what leads artists to denominate nickel plate upon a stove as meretricious, and therefore nickel plate upon a stove with no fire in it, I suppose, would not be termed meretricious. I would ask Mr. Chapin if that is his meaning.
Mr. Chapin: I have only to reply to Mr. Perry, Mr. President, that we are to consider a thing in view of that for which it is constructed. A stove is constructed to contain a fire. It is constructed for the purpose of bringing the fire, or rather the heat, out into the room. We all know the enjoyment of sitting around an open fireplace, and the reason why you have put mica into your fronts, instead of closing them up, is that you may have the benefit of an open fire. The fire represents the hearthstone. The stove is constructed for the purpose of containing the fire. You put mica lights into it in order that you may see the fire, and hence we can only consider it in that light. We can not consider it in the light of standing in your warerooms merely to be admired. We have to bear in mind that it has to contain fire, and it is generally seen when it contains a fire. In that view, if you find anything of glare and glitter which distracts the eye from the fire, or bewilders the gaze, you destroy the artistic effect. That is the only point I make in regard to it.
Mr. Perry: Then I understand it is only when the fire is lighted that a piece of nickel plate on a stove becomes meretricious. I suppose that for many centuries a high polish of silver plate has been used upon carriages and upon harness as well. Now, in that connection, is it meretricious or is it out of place! Is it in contrast with something that is black, as a nickel plated ornament is in contrast with a black stove, and I would like to inquire of Mr. Chapin, or any other gentleman of culture present, whether that is meretricious and out of place! Of course, the object is to get at the truth and not to cavil.
Mr. Chapin: I understand Mr. Perry’s motive, of course. I would explain by taking up the very subject which Mr. Perry has mentioned. Take, for example, a silver plated harness, and I would ask Mr. Perry, as a gentleman of culture, if for that silver bronze were substituted, it would not be more attractiveand pleasing to the eye, more restful and more in harmony with its use. Silver is out of Character on a harness; It does not belong there. It is one of those incongruities that the artist at once perceives and speaks of. But make it of brass, and it would still be too bright; make it of bronze or some dark metal, and you have something that is in keeping with its use, and in character with the combination.
Mr. Perry: Let us come to the practical question. Probably nine-tenths, if not ninety-nine one-hundredths, of all the harness and carriages that have been ornamented in the last century have been with silver plate. Now, the manufacturers of those articles make them to sell, and they produce what the people want; they don’t make something to please themselves. They make what will sell and what the people desire; and the fact that ninety-nine in one hundred, I have no doubt, of all the equipages of that kind that are ornamented with any kind of plate, whether of bronze or otherwise, are silver plated, it seems to me is pretty good proof that that is what the people generally want. To come back to the matter of
stoves. We do not make stoves for gentleman of the high artistic and aesthetic taste of Mr. Chapin and Mr. Bayles, the latter of whom has done everything in his power to educate us, and for which we are most certainly greatly obliged, but we make stoves for the common people as a whole, that are sold in the far West, the South, the North and other sections of the country where there is not perhaps so much cultivated taste as in some other sections more highly favored. It seems to me that it is the business of the manufacturer who is wise to make the things that the people want, without regard to what his own opinions or those of artists may be. We do not make stoves for artists; we make them for the common people as a whole. Three or four years ago the firm that I represent had a range, and this was before nickel plate was as extensively employed as now. We put upon that range the usual amount of nickel plate. I think there were two or three other small pieces. In the sample room we placed alongside of it another precisely like it, but without any nickel plate, every piece being black, excepting, perhaps, the knobs; and we made a difference in the price of those ranges of $4 apiece, and the cost was not half that sum. We said: “There is a range, if you please, at $20, and another, precisely like it, at $16.” Well, those samples stood there the entire year, and we did not sell one of the black ranges—not one. We would rather have sold those, though perhaps they did not pay quite so much. Last year we advertised, and told our customers in that way and by circulars: “We make stoves so and so, and with such an ornament of nickel plate upon them. Now, we will sell you those stoves with half that amount of nickel plate upon them for so much, and without nickel plate for another price.” I never heard that any man ever ordered a stove and reduced the amount of nickel plate we put on. Such being the fact, it seems to me good proof that that is what the people want. We do not add nickel plate to please ourselves; it can afford us no satisfaction surely. It is a great amount of trouble and cost. It is a perfect nuisance, as well as expense; but it is what the people demand and like, and a stove made with these beautiful ornaments upon it, such as the gentleman has so precisely described and illustrated, might please us and might please him, but it would not be, in my judgment, the stove that would sell, except in limited quantity, and the question of sales is the one most vitally interesting and the one for which we do business. We have heard a good deal about this meretricious ornamenting of nickel plating, and I must say, if the gentleman will allow me to say it, I think too much. It would be altogether a different matter and put a different phase upon it, were we making stoves to please those gentleman, or to gratify an educated, aesthetic taste and demand. When these gentlemen will point out something which may be substituted for nickel plate, we shall be greatly obliged and indebted to them.
Col. W. P. Warren: Mr. President— My own views and experiences have been so analogous to those of Mr. Perry that I can hardly bear to allude to the matter. Last year our “Splendid” parlor; which I think for lines of beauty is perhaps unequaled (laughter) was put into the market as you have seen it. We were very anxious to reduce the amount of our nickel plating business. Our facilities were not extensive enough for the requirements of the trade, and, consequently, we put that stove out upon the market with all the nickel plating we had upon it, and then Mr. Perry put another alongside of it, with nothing but the urn and knobs, & etc., nickeled. We made a wide difference in price, and did not sell 25 of them, although we tried very hard, you may believe, to do it in order to relieve ourselves. The story comes back to us this winter that we must have more nickel plate than Mr. So-and-So’s stove, and our travelers say Mr. Somebody out at Rome says he would like the “Splendid” if we would put as much nickel on it as the “Garland” has. Well, I don’t know whether we can meet Mr. Barbour on the nickel plate business, but we are going to try. As Mr. Perry says, profit is what we are doing business for. We aim to supply the people with stoves and reap the benefit arising there from. If that is our province, I think such gentleman as the one who just read the paper ought to be employed by the association to write articles for The Metal Worker, which passes into the hands of the buyers, and thus try to educate the makers up to their views, and then let us follow.
Mr. Geo. H. Barbour: One question, Col. Warren; 1877 was the first year the “Splendid” came out, was it not?
Col. Warren: I don’t know exactly.
Mr. Barbour: Col. Warren did not change the stove at all for the first year or so, while other manufacturers just threw the nickel right out.
Col. Warren: Not to interrupt Mr. Barbour, I would say we never changed the stove at all. The stove was run two years without change.
Mr. Barbour: I always supposed that the “Splendid” held its own on account of not having any more nickel plate, but perhaps it was dollars and cents that governed it. I don’t know but he got out on the second year by having so good a sale without having any change.
Col. Warren: We never complained at all of the sale we had on the stove. I am only speaking of the general manner of nickel plating.
Mr. Barbour: If you had good success the second year without putting any more nickel plating on, that’s all right.
Col. Warren: We had good success, and we have not changed the stove with the exception of a little nickel plate here and there. I am speaking merely on the abstract question. The trade call for nickel plate, and if they want it, we favor letting them have it if they pay for it.
Gen. Rathbone: I think the members of the craft will all agree with Messrs. Perry and Warren in the fact that they desire to make stoves that they can sell, and thereby make a profitable for their labor and capital. I apprehend, sir, that there are very few gentleman here present who will affirm that the large amount of nickel plate that is used upon many of the stoves at the present time is in good taste. I do not think it would require any prophetic vision to safely assert that the day will come—and that, too, within the next two years—when we shall look back upon this age of nickel with much astonishment, and shall reach this conclusion—that customers who demand, and the people who desire, these large amounts of nickel, need to have their tastes (in that direction, certainly) cultivated and elevated. (Applause.) I think that the reading of such papers as we have had presented here by the gentlemen who have been invited to prepare and present them, has been and will be of decided benefit to the members of the association. I apprehend it was not the wish of Mr. Chapin, nor has it been the wish of Mr. Bayles, to undertake to dictate as to what we shall do in reference to making patterns, but simply to throw out suggestions for our guidance—suggestions which it is optional with us to adopt or reject. If we can educate the public taste, and, at the same time, secure a profitable return for our labor and capital, we ought to be willing to do so. I agree with Mr. Perry that we must manufacture, for the present time, the articles that are demanded by the people to whom we sell our goods; but I do hope that the time is not so very far distant when the public taste will be elevated and improved, and when we shall make stoves that will not be offensive to good taste. As to nickel plating, Mr. Warren intimates that he proposes to put more on next year. I have had very little to do with the details of the business of the firm in which I have the honor to be a partner, but I confess that, in looking upon the stoves made last year, I think it will be exceedingly difficult, if much more is done in that direction, to find a place upon which a particle more of nickel can be put, and I think, perhaps, the next best thing will be to make the entire stove of nickel. Although the public may demand it, I am sure that it is not in good taste. I am confident that the views of the public in this regard will change.I wish further to say that Mr. Chapin has, in my judgment, done us a great kindness. I requested him to prepare the paper he has presented today, and I think the association are under a deep sense of obligation to him for the interest and labor manifested in its preparation.
Col. Warren: I would not have it understood that I depreciate in the least Mr. Chapin’s paper. I congratulated him the moment he had finished, and asked that I might see him at the hotel hereafter in regard to it. I took very great pleasure in his paper, and I should like to here more in the same direction upon the subject he has presented, for I feel that we all need to be educated—at least I do— in artistic matters and upon the points to which Mr. Chapin has alluded. I hope, at another meeting of the association, that he may be called upon and will prepare another paper still further elaborating these matters, so well considered in the paper before us.
