ABSTRACT
The very successful Art at Home series was published from 1876–1883 by Macmillan with a view to satisfying the needs of a lower-middle-class readership who could not afford the services of a professional decorator. Mrs Orrinsmith’s The Drawing Room was first published in 1877 with eight chapters on aspects of the creation of a drawing room. Presupposing no indifference to the beautiful, nor any lack of time or inclination to take that active part in the arrangements of a house necessary to ensure a happy result, it is obvious that a peculiar kind of culture in art is requisite for decorative purposes, since examples are found of good taste in colour, proportion, and ornamentation, in comparatively uncivilised races, while the authors are indebted to such advanced countries as France and Germany for much in the way of objets d’art, in which, to say the least, the taste evidenced is of a more than doubtful character.
