Sharon believes these curtains were used for doorways and were called
portières. She's collected quite a number of examples from all the issues of "The Craftsman" magazine she scanned for photos.
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Nov 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Nov 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Dec 1903 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Mar 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Mar 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Mar 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Jun 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Jun 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Jun 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Jun 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Ju 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Aug 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Dec 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Dec 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Dec 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Feb 1908 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Apr 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Apr 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Apr 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, Apr 1904 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, May 1905 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, May 1905 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, May 1905 |
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| Craftsman Magazine, May 1905 |
When I was trying to research how to actually make a portiere (to answer questions like whether it was lined, or suspended by rings), I went and dug through a number of period texts. I share the best of them below.
The Homemaker: Her Science, by Carlotta Norton Smith. 1905. "Ch. 15: Curtains & Hangings," pp. 198-99.
PORTIERES: The portiere may be used in two ways. It may be merely a break between the color scheme of one room and that of another, or it may be the means of separating one from another when desired. In the first case, the curtains are stationary, are joined at the top, and are looped back. In the second, they slide on poles, the rings being furnished with tiny rollers which play in a groove of the pole.
A portiere should be dark rather than light, and of sufficiently heavy material to hang without disturbance by any ordinary breeze. The rules which apply to the designs of carpets apply also to those of hangings. The scheme should be quiet and subdued, and be more a play of color than a marked pattern. There may be a little more boldness of line and contrast of color, since the portiere hangs in folds which break the continuity of line and mass of color.
When the city house is occupied in the summer, the portieres may be replaced with white muslin hangings to match the windows. They must be tied back, however, or they will be only too faithful indicators of the slightest draught.
The Complete Home, edited by Clara E. Laughlin. 1912. "Ch. 12: Hangings, Bric-a-Brac, Books and Pictures," pp. 250-2.
...Figured portieres with plain walls, and vice versa, are the rule, the coloring blending with both floor and walls and coming between the two in density. Again the neutral tint comes to the rescue if difficulty in matching is met.
There is almost an embarrassment of riches in portiere materials in plain and figured velours, woolen brocades, soft tapestries, furniture satins, damasks, velvets, etc., but we are learning the true art value of the simpler denims (plain and fancy), reps, cotton tapestries, rough, heavy linens, and monk's cloth—a kind of jute—for door hangings. The plain goods in dull, soft greens, blues, and browns, with conventional designs in applique or outlining, are not only inexpensive but artistic to a high degree, and are easily fashioned by home talent. Plain strips, too, are used for trimming, and stencil work, but the latter requires rather more artistic ability than most of us possess. Whatever the material, it must be soft enough to draw all the way back and leave a full opening, but not so thin as to be flimsy and stringy. The portiere is either shirred over the pole or hung from it by hook safety pins or rings sewed on at intervals of four inches.
Double-faced goods have the hems on the side on which they will show least, with any extra length turned over as a valance on the same side. The finished curtain should hang one-inch from the floor and will gradually stretch until it just escapes the proper length. Single-faced materials are lined to harmonize with the room which receives the wrong side. Lengthwise stripes give a long, narrow effect, while crosswise stripes give an apparent additional width, and plain mateials seem to increase the size of a doorway. Rods may be either of a wood corresponding with the other woodwork, or of brass, with rings, sockets, and brackets of the same material, the brass rod to be an inch in diameter and the wooden one-inches or more and set inside the jambs.
Portieres are also of service in softening the opening of a large bay window, making a cozy corner, or cutting off an awkward length of hall. When a doorway is very high it is better to carry the portiere to within a foot or so of the top, leaving the opening unfilled, or supplying a simple grille of wood harmonizing with the wood of the door. A pretty fashion is to introduce into this space a shelf on which to place pieces of brass or pottery. Beaded, bamboo, and rope affairs are neither draperies nor curtains, graceful, useful nor ornamental, and are consequently not to be considered.
Men of science may cry " Down with draperies!" —but we members of that choicer cult known as domestic science stand loyally by them, for though in draperies there may be microbes, there is also largess of coziness and geniality.
The Furnishing of a Modest Home by Fred Hamilton Daniels, 1908. "Ch. 4: The Walls and the Floors," pp. 56-8.
The Portieres
The portiere had its origin in the desire to bar out draughts of air or noise. Probably later, it was discovered that portieres often-times serve to soften the lines of the woodwork. From the nature of the service expected of them it should be seen at once that they should be hung upon rings so that they may be easily moved. They should not be swathed about a pole (as if the pole were suffering from tonsilitis), thus rendering their moving aside a matter calling for a step ladder. Portieres made from ropes, beads, bamboo, shells, spools, buttons, or string beans serve no purpose, and merely illustrate the craving for novelty associated with an untrained mind.
With a figured wall paper it is well to use plain portieres, as the design of the paper can seldom be repeated in the portiere. With plain paper we may have a figured portiere. The best designs are never those which come by the yard, except in plain goods, but such designs as are prepared for a portiere only. A figured cloth cannot be so designed as to be equally suitable for a chair back, a dress, a necktie, and a portiere. Various uses require varied and individual designs. A portiere hangs in folds. If it has a pattern, the design of the pattern should not be abruptly distorted at every fold. This happens when the pattern is of large, bold curves. Hence patterns of small size, or patterns with their dominant lines moving either in a vertical or a horizontal direction are least affected. In fact, such patterns are sometimes improved by a varied and rhythmic spacing which comes from the folding of the cloth. Nature gives us similar examples of a varied rhythm in the spacing of the vertical tree trunks of the woods; in the appearance of the brook as it winds across the meadows, now seen and now gone only to reappear again, we have the rhythm of the horizontal pattern on the portiere.
A satisfactory solution of the design can be secured by purchasing one of the hand-embroidered portieres made in crafts shops, or by copying a satisfactory design from a reliable book or magazine, and working it out in worsted one's self. As for the material, silk or satin, from its very nature, is not so good as a rougher, heavier cloth, free from sheen and made to wear. In color, the portiere should repeat the dominant color of the room. Harmony of color consists in agreement of color.
Successful Houses by Oliver Coleman, 1902. "Chapter 10: Portiéres—Their Use and Misuse," pp. 131-5.
The hangings which are placed in doorways, between rooms, have a more substantial reason for existence than the mere adding of a patch of color or the softening of the hard lines of the wooden door jamb. At openings, where no doors are provided, as is often the case in modern houses, the portiére serves in lieu of the wooden door, and if of proper fabric will not only successfully screen off one room from the other, but will deaden the sound and stop the drafts. In openings provided with doors, portiéres still may be of great use, for frequently occasions arise which, for some of the above reasons, require a partial separation of two rooms, and yet not to such an extent as to incur the forbidding aspect of a closed door. Again, when the separation is necessarily absolute, as in the case of sickness in one room, the heavy portiére, close drawn across the closed door, will serve to stop all cracks, and keep without the sick chamber all the disturbing clatter of the house.
It follows, therefore, that a portiére that will not, in some measure, fulfill these requisites, is another example of the perversion of useful objects into mere ornaments, and is inevitably unsuccessful. Very sheer materials, and even lace curtains, are sometimes seen trying to do duty as portiéres, but they are always cold, flimsy, and objectless, and the opening or doorway would appear very much better without anything at all. This is such a common error, even in houses of the better sort, an to be a matter of much surprise. On the other hand, very heavy or "stogy” materials are not well used, as they hang and can never be made to draw all the way back and leave the full opening.
Materials like velours, woolen brocades, and soft tapestries, furniture satins, and others of a soft, flexible, yet thick, close texture, are much to be preferred. For bedrooms, cretonnee and chintzes, without starch, lined with China silk, or even unlined, so as to be easily washed, are proper.
There has lately been a fad to hang the curtains over the poles without the use of rings. This is not to be commended. It does not allow for a prompt and easy drawing of the portiéres to and fro, and at the same time makes a nasty place for dust to settle. The portiére should be hooked into rings of wood or brass, and, in all cases where the pole is higher than can be conveniently reached, there should be a cord to draw them by. It is unfortunate that our modern high ceilings frequently are accompanied by high doorways, so that in order to lower the head room under the lintel, the pole is set down. Whereupon the very serious question of grills presents itself.
It is not politic, in this connection, to use the laconic “don’t,” yet the truth is that there are more atrocities perpetrated in this way than in almost any other attempt to beautify the house. Turned spindles with little balls at intervals, set in fantastic designs, or scroll-saw work of the cheapest character, and often painted white with gold trimmings, make a really dreadful combination, and when below there is a heavy lace curtain “artistically” draped and looped, the is deplorable. Grills need not of a necessity be so bad. Some of the simple lattice-work stained or painted to harmonize with the woodwork of the room upon which they face, are really very effective. Frequently, in expensive houses, hand-carved grills are an exceptional addition to the final effect. One house the writer knows of was decorated with carved grills in a leaf design and green in color, which thus corresponded with the growing plants much used in the house in question, with a result surprisingly successful. It would surprise many, however, to discover how really unnecessary a grill is, and how very efiective a doorway may be where the pole is simply set down some seven feet six above the floor and the opening is left unfilled. The pole should, under no circumstances, be hung on one side of the opening so that the portiéres hang over the woodwork at the sides, but instead, it should be betwaeu the jambs, and the curtain can then hang between.
Every one is familiar with the weird echo to be heard in empty rooms, and in many of the cathedrals of Europe, flags and banners are suspended in various positions to catch the sound waves and prevent them from striking the walls and being rolled back. Portiéres in a house, if properly hung, act much in the same manner, and soften and deaden the sound in a very agreeable way. They cannot be used too freely, and when once they have been in place a room will always be bare and somewhat noisy in their absence, the wonder being how one lived so long without notice of these faults.
Foreign houses are never as open as are those of America. No English architect would dream of making a large hall, a drawing-room, a library, and a dining-room all connected by ten-toot openings, and without a single door. Yet such plans are not only frequent, but are becoming almost the rule in this country. The various claims put forth in favor of this idea are that it gives a house a larger and more generous appearance, is more convenient for entertaining, and allows for cleverly arranged vistas, looking from one room through the next into the third. The Englishman will, however, reply that we have no privacy; a caller, when he is admitted into the hall, has to exercise immense ingenuity in order to conceal himself while removing his overshoes, in the meantime overhearing the whispered comments that the receipt of his card may elicit. Drafts are numerous, the opening of the front door is at once apparent, even when the bell is not clearly heard, and all conversation eases entirely, or goes on in a subdued manner until the name and character of the arriving guest is ascertained. In an English house each room has its door, and in every case this door is closed. A more general use of portiéres would obviate, in a great measure, these objections, especially if, as suggested, they be so hung as readily to draw back and forth. It is indeed a question whether such an arrangement would not contain all the good points of both systems, in that the drafts and most of the sound would be suppressed, the privacy would be encouraged, and yet, for large occasions, the curtains could be drawn aside and the full benefit of large connecting rooms be obtainable.
The absurdity of the so-called draperies, that is the festooned and looped-up curtains, which are almost invariably considered essentials of “an artistic home,” cannot better be illustrated than by a careful consideration of these very important uses for which a portiére is intended. That they are utterly ruined for any practical purpose seems never to occur to the proud poasessor, and in many houses very serious inconvenience is endured day after day by reason of their incapacity for their rightful duty.
That they are had from the standpoint of correct decoration is a natural sequence, for the test of all beauty in the house must be its perfect adaptability to its use-—here, as everywhere else, that which fails to satisfy this test is a failure.
If there be any practical or decorative use to which one may put portiéres of beads or colored bamboo, it has never been discovered. They have no place in a serious discussion of the question, being produced, like the Yankee's razor, for no other purpose than “to sell.” They screen neither light nor air, and of all things in the world are most remote from adding beauty to the house unfortunate enough to possess them.
The variety of materials which legitimately may be employed is very large. The decoration upon these materials, either in the shape of embroideriee, galloons in woven or dyed designs, or stencil or painted decoration, is also a wide field from which it is necessary to choose wisely only, so as to harmonize with the other decorations of the rooms. All this allows of infinite variety, but the hanging cannot be other than in the simplmt straight folds, without a suggestion of looping or other “draping."
In choosing the portiéres, and window curtains as well, it is well to eonsider whether the walls be plain or figured. With plain walls plain hangings may be used, but variety is obtained by using in such rooms figured hangings. In rooms with figured walls, however, there is no proper choice. The impossibility of matching the well design forces one to employ plain portiéres only, in some harmonious shade or color. Any departure from this practice leads to the confusion of deign caused by two dissimilar designs being in close proximity, and is neither attractive nor restful.
The longing for variety, the root of much evil, may not be gratified, then, in the method of hanging the portiére. It is seldom that anything is more absolutely fixed by common sense to one course only, and every etfort made to escape from this direct and simple way can lead only to disaster and absurdity. In the materials used and the colors adopted there is surely a range of choice anfiicient to meet the needs of any one without resorting to useless nonsense.
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