Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/147

Rh the study of contemporary interiors that they were sometimes framed in black or very dark brown, with perhaps a slight touch of gold. A whole room in which the frames are black gives a very lugubrious appearance. For museum purposes the black frame is an admirable note provided it is not introduced too often.

—In the matter of hanging, there are many things to be considered. The museum director who finds himself at the head of a museum in which all the walls are plaster is constrained to hang from a moulding or pipe. Of course an ordinary wooden moulding is not strong enough to be considered in an art museum, where very often the pictures to be hung are excessively heavy. Some type of iron bar is the most useful. There are on the market various forms of bars. The so-called Z-bar, one-half of which is imbedded in the plaster of the wall, has the disadvantage that it projects nearly an inch from the surface of the wall when in place and, therefore, the wires or chains from which the pictures are suspended do not hang flat on the wall. The pipe moulding has the same disadvantage, and also, as it is attached to the wall at frequent intervals with fasteners which are sunk deep into the plaster, a hook can not be placed where these fasteners come; therefore the exact spacing of pictures