Portière with Border in Renaissance Embroidery (1880)

From the October 9, 1880 edition of Harper's Bazaar magazine:

This elegant portière is of rich maroon velvet, with a border worked on réséda cloth in the popular Renaissance [style]. The border is repeated across the bottom of each curtain, and also at the lower edge of the lambrequin, where it is finished by maroon twisted fringe. The border is composed of single squares, embroidered at regular intervals on the cloth foundation, with intervening bars of gold braid. Fig. 2 shows the embroidery for each square. After the design has been transferred to the material, the several design figures are covered with stitches worked in a vertical direction with a single thread of split filling silk, in which one stitch is worked forward, the needle carried over two threads of the material on the wrong side, and then a stitch worked back. After a design figure has been covered with threads in this manner, transverse stitches are worked at intervals of an eighth of an inch, and fastened down with overcast stitches of the same silk, the latter stitches forming alternating rows. For the blossoms, bluish-pink silk in several shades and bronze silk are used, for the intersecting lines, Bordeaux, and for the leaves and stems, olive, sea blue, and brown silks in different shades. The embroidered squares are bounded by double lines of bronze filling silk, caught down with overcast stitches of the same silk split, while the space between the lines is filled with herring-bone stitches of bronze silk. For the vine ornamentation, cream-colored silk is sewn down with overcast stitches of bronze. The strips of gold braid are fastened down with bronze filling silk, caught down with overcast stitches of the same silk split, and this latter silk is also used for the row of herring-bone stitches ornamenting the braid. The joining of the border and the velvet foundation is covered by silk cord of the same shade. The portière is draped by means of cords of maroon silk and wool terminating in tassels, as seen in the illustration.

Curtains and portières with wide, embroidered "Renaissance" borders were often featured in the popular press, sometimes with lambrequins or cornice pieces, sometimes with only the curtains proper. As horizontally banded curtains became fashionable, often the embroidered borders were also used to divide the curtain panels - ideally, the point of division would echo the height of the dado, as seen in the decoration of the Worsham-Rockefeller Bedroom. (Detail here.)

Harmony, of color and style (1879)

(Both the modern conception of nineteenth-century interiors as all scarlet flocked wallpaper, and the "Victorian Revival" fad for walls of deep burgundy, hunter green or teal are far from the complex arrangements of carefully placed hues advocated by the taste-makers of the time. Colors like "orange-maroon" and "bluish-pink" are frequently referenced in period writings, as are color schemes like blue walls with "orange-green" doors and red accents mentioned in the following article. -TPR)

Harmony of color and style are the objects to attain in all house decoration, whether costly or simple, and it is of course necessary that the room and furniture should look suitable to their purpose.

In endeavoring to make a drawing-room bright we should avoid garishness and glitter as carefully as dinginess and gloom. Perhaps the best treatment of walls is that of arranging a dado upon them. Make the wall cream color, for example, but the dado, a portion below the line, we paint maroon or chocolate; on this lower portion a pattern called a dado rail is placed. A cream colored wall contrast well with a dark blue dado. As the wall should look somewhat neutral, the blue should consist of ultramarine, with a little black and a little white added to give a certain amount of neutrality. With a rich and slightly orange-maroon dado a gray-blue wall of middle tint would accord well. Quaintness of effect is given by dados varying in height, in some cases they may be two-thirds the height of the room, and according to circumstances will ordinarily be from eighteen inches to seven feet in height. The more difficult it is to detect proportions in a wall the better, and it should never be divided into equal parts.

The carpet should be dark, but not dull, one of Persian pattern with a border all around looks well. A space should be left between the carpet and the skirting-board, and all the floor uncovered may be stained and polished in the ordinary way.

The best materials for curtains are woolen serge and Bolton sheeting of Pompeiian red or bluish gray shades, and with or without patterns on them. Woolen serge is soft looking, inexpensive, and hangs well, but Bolton sheeting is still cheaper, and a good effect at a small cost can be produced by working on curtains made of this material in a border of colored crewels. The wood-work of a room should generally be of darker tints than the walls. It is of paramount importance that the doors should be conspicuous. The articles of furniture may be in ebony or walnut, some of each if desired. The tables of different sizes and shapes, if possible; none large, but very firm on their legs. Any protruding articles of furniture, such as cabinets, etc., should be arranged at the top and bottom of the room, smaller things at the sides, and the same with the wall decorations, flat ones, such as pictures on the sides, and hanging shelves and brackets top and bottom. To lessen the appearance of length, small corner cupboards may be introduced.

The pictures desired should be hung in narrow gilt frames with small flat margins of black, and should be water-colors. If the wall be citrine in color, the doors should be dark, low-toned Antwerp blue, or it may be of dark bronze-green, but in the latter case, a line of red should be run around the inside of the architecture. If the wall be blue, a dark orange-green will do well for the door, or an orange-maroon, but a line of red around the door will improve it. A wall of bright turquoise in color will require a door of Indian red.

These are mere illustrations of numerous harmonious combinations which may be made, but they serve to show what is meant by harmonious decoration. If it is thought necessary to place an ornament on a door-panel, it is better quaint or slightly heraldic in appearance. A monogram may sometimes be applied to a door, but it should not be repeated frequently. In regard to the skirting in a room, it should always be dark, and it would be difficult to find a room where the skirting was light, which would be altogether satisfying to the eye. The skirting may often be black, the greater portion of it varnished, with parts left "dead," however, to obtain the contrast between a bright and dead surface. A few lines of color may be run upon its moldings, but not to ornament it, for its treatment must be simple to get a retiring, yet bold effect. If black is not desirable, brown, rich maroon, dull blue or bronze-green may be employed.

Of necessity, all decorations will cost time, labor and a comparatively small amount of money, but, as William Morris truly said: "All who care for art must make sacrifices for it, much greater in these days of transition than they would have to do if art were an admitted necessity, and cherished by all men." There are a few who, having given thought, time and means to making their homes truly "houses beautiful," do not feel repaid for their exertions, or, at least, consider them anything but profitless.

from "Hints for House Decoration" (Arthur's Illustrated Home Magazine, November 1879)

Canton-Flannel Portiéres (1880)

(My next few projects will be to make curtains for our front hall and library, and portiéres for several door openings. I'll be posting some excerpts on the subject of window and door hangings from various historic sources. -TPR)

Among upholstery goods there is a remarkable variety now, and the materials, prices, and designs, vary to such extent that hardly any one can fail to find something to suit her taste or the length of her purse....

Double faced Canton-flannel comes in a variety of rich dark shades, including garnet, claret, olive, golden, and chocolate browns, myrtle, and blue greens, Prussian blue, etc., as well as in pink and other light tints. It is 60 inches wide, and 88 cts. per yard. This hangs in heavy and graceful folds, and is as rich in effect as expensive cloths or felts.

Figure 1 represents a portiére, or door curtain, made of the double-faced Canton-flannel. The middle of the curtain is of Prussian blue, with a 12 inch border of “old gold” color at top and bottom. Five rows of alpaca braid, and leaf-shaped ornaments (made of shaded double zephyr) complete the trimming. The braid which comes next to the gold-colored band should be red, the next one white, next dark green, then brown, and last, black. The leaves, of shaded red double zephyr, are made by catching the zephyr down at each point, and at the places where it curves out from the middle of the leaf, by stitches of gold-colored silk floss. This makes quite an elegant curtain at small expense. Of course the colors may be varied to suit the room in which it is to be used.

from "Hints on Home Adornment" (Godey's Lady's Book, June 1880)

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Places to go! Rooms to see!

While much information can be gleaned from books and magazines, both modern and "of the period," experiencing actual interiors is invaluable. Admittedly, museum houses and period rooms are static, sometimes artificial in their arrangement, and often devoid of natural light, but photographs, drawings and words, for their part, cannot wholly impart scale, texture, or color relationships.

Some extant Aesthetic Style interiors include the John Bond Trevor Mansion, "Glenview," at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY (decorated by the New York decorating firm of Leissner and Louis, Philadelphia cabinetmaker Daniel Pabst, and possibly Kimbel and Cabus, and ); the Cohen-Bray House in Oakland, CA; and the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT (decorated by Associated Artists, Louis Comfort Tiffany's firm).

The Glessner House in Chicago is probably the premier example of English Arts & Crafts Movement influenced interior design in the United States. Villa Louis in Prairie du Chien, WI, decorated by prominent Chicago decorator Joseph Twyman, is also a very good example, as are several of the bedrooms at Chateau sur Mer in Newport, RI.... for the British prototype, see the
Edward Linley Sambourne House in London.
Some Aesthetic interiors have also been removed from their original (now demolished) locations and now "live" in museums as period rooms: the Goodwin Parlor at the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, CT (decorated by Herter Brothers); and, at the Brooklyn Museum, a smoking room from the John D. Rockefeller House, in New York City. And of course this blog's namesake, James A.M. Whistler's 1876 Peacock Room, for his patron Frederick Leyland, can been seen at the Freer Gallery in Washington, DC.

No list of American Aesthetic movement interiors would be complete without mention of the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York City. Decorated by such luminaries of the field as Associated Artists, Herter Brothers (eight rooms!), Pottier & Stymus, Kimbel and Cabus, Alexander Roux, and Stanford White, the Armory is in the beginning phase of a much-needed restoration effort, and was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1988.

Images:
Mark Twain House [First Floor, Entrance Hall, View of Staircase in Southwest Corner form the North]. HABS image.

The Goodwin Reception Room, by adamgn, under Creative Commons License.

Smoking Room (c. 1880) from the John D. Rockefeller House (4 West 54th Street, New York City. Built 1864-1865; demolished 1938). Photograph © The Brooklyn Museum