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My second gambit was to break up the vast space by fashioning three distinct areas: a small sitting space as you enter, a dining-room table of glass and Roman travertine in the bay overlooking the street, and a large sitting area in front of the fireplace (not Beckford's mantle piece, by the way, but perfectly acceptable). The center is punctuated by a round table of English yew that I have carted from one house and apartment to another over the past decade or so. And then the small, playful surprises: the two articulated lay figures sitting on the three-bay bookcase; the Portuguese processional figure, draped in eighteenth-century silk by a local dollmaker; and the pristine miniature "Bath chair" whose wavy glass and upholstery date it to the late nineteenth century – and purchased, I should add, at the Saturday-morning flea market in Bath that has also yielded the Persian rug as you enter and the 13-foot Hamadan on the floor of the bridge. My third decision was simply one of aesthetic restraint as I resisted my initial inclination to hang as many of the Piranesis as possible in place of Beckford's Raphaels and Bellinis. The introduction of the rich yellow coloring not only served as a foil to the intricate swags and cartouches of the cornice-work, but also managed to give the entire room a sense of being furnished already. Instead of double (or even triple) hanging the prints on the walls, I mounted only ten of them, strategically spaced around the room: HYLAND