Embellishments for woodwork.(Design Notes)

In the eighteenth century carvers and stucco artists of architectural embellishments were given a run for their money by molded composition ornament. The recipe for making compo, as it was called, varied considerably, but the main ingredients were whiting (ground up lime), resin, and animal glue. Using compo, swags, acanthus leaves, egg-and-dart, narrative scenes, and other motifs could be produced in greater quantity and less expensively than their hand-carved equivalents. Hard as stone and quite durable, compo soon became the material of choice for architects and designers working with restricted budgets.

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Making this type of ornament involves three steps: creating the molds (carved in reverse), pressing the composition into them, and attaching the finished product to the woodwork. Far from becoming extinct, skilled carvers flourished making the molds of such dense species as boxwood or pear "with great neatness and truth, as on it depends the exquisiteness of the ornament," as the American architect Minard Lafever wrote in 1833 in The Modern Builder's Guide.

At the turn of the twentieth century there was a revival of interest in compo by those restoring old houses and others steeped in the colonial revival movement who were incorporating antique elements into new construction. Partially in answer to this demand, the Decorators Supply Corporation was founded in Chicago in 1883, the year that Simon Strahn and Richard C. Foster formed a partnership to manufacture "artistic decorative accessories." The firm's location all but guaranteed it a role in the World's Columbian Exposition, which opened in Chicago a decade ...