Art and Handcraft in the Woman's Building
of the World's Columbian Exposition

36 ART AND HANDICRAFT carpeted with matting and liung with delicately tinted paper. In an outer room—a guest-chamber—is a raised cushion of state, on which the honored stranger is invited to sit (or squat). A few paintings hang upon tlie wall; a single piece of bronze, a finely modeled bird, rests on a lacquered stand. The inner room is sacred to the toilet of the lady of the house. Over a screen hang rainbow-hued garments en- riched with wonderful embroideries. Lac- quered coffers of every size and shape, tied with silk cords of different colors, form a picturesque substitute for our commonplace chests of drawers. A polished steel mirror, the little knitter, upon a stand, shows where the mistress of m. o. kobbé. united states, this dainty boudoir should sit upon a cushion (By permission of the Century- Company—Copyrighted.) to perform the details of her toilet. A lac- quered and bronze brazier stands near, and a rack over which are folded fine linen towels. A multitude of fine inlaid boxes stand upon the ground near the mirror. Let us not pry into their secrets. The real secret of the peculiar charm which the Japanese women have always possessed for men of their own and the European nations lies in the fact that they are taught to be agreeable. With the Japanese, good manners rise to the dignity of a high art. Courtesy, gentle- ness, sympathy are cultivated with the same care and skill that this joyous, painstaking people put into everything that they do. We must not fail to see the Japanese parlor in the second story, where the Japan- ese Commissioner has gathered together a very fine collection of painted and embroid- ered screens and hangings. A painting upon silk, framed in a little shrine in the end of this room, shows us Sei Shonagun, a learned Japanese woman who served the Empress Sada Ko in the tenth century of the Christian era. She wrote a book which is still famous, an extract from which we may read, in translation, together with a full ANTWERP PEASANT. M. O. Kobbé. United States. (By permission of the Century- Company—Copyrighted.) description of the picture. Nothing brings home the real signifi- cance of the work collected in our building more than the statement made by the Japanese Woman’s Commission of its organization.