Do you have Portieres in your house? Do you know what Portieres are? If your house is older than 1950 I can bet your house had them.
Portieres – otherwise known as an archway drape or curtain, were first used in castles. With the high ceilings and large rooms of Victorian homes, they made their comeback. They then became so popular they were used in all architectural styles from mansions to apartments through the 1940’s.
Portieres were great for closing off unheated rooms, keeping out drafts, and keeping heat from a fireplace or stove confined to a room for extra warmth and out of the halls where it was less needed.
During this time heavy elaborate draperies were also used for window treatments, which provided an extra layer of insulation over a cold window. Together the two contributed to the highly decorative style of Victorian interior decoration.
Elaborate Portieres – not much heavier than the woman’s dress. Note the tie-backs are in different locations. Actually I believe the woman is wearing a portiere.
Edith Wharton in her book “The Decoration of Houses” (1897), states that pocket doors were somewhat heavy and difficult to operate and portieres solved that problem. Portieres became one of the highest expenses in decorating a room when the money could have been used for something seemingly more important like repairing a cracked ceiling. Wharton also stated that portieres covered up the architecture of doorways. (this is when hung by a rod attached to the wood above the doorway, not set within the opening).
Did your house have portieres? Look for ghost marks close to the top on the inside of your archways.
You will probably see a circular mark of a holder for a 1 ½ inch pole which held the portieres.
You may even find smaller ghost marks where you currently have other doors.
The fashion of portieres became so popular that sometimes a door was removed or a portiere installed in front of the door and drawn to the side for appearance only.
Heavy velvet was the most popular material. They were usually made with a different color on each side to match the room they were facing.
Lighter weight portieres would be used during the warmer months. Some actually incorporated the use of an elaborate cord and pulley system for opening and closing.
The purpose of keeping out drafts during the winter soon became a lesser priority as the fashion of using portieres exploded.
After a while your archway would be considered naked if it did not have some sort of decoration such as a portiere on each side, on one side, a rope portiere, wood fretwork spandrels, etc.
The portieres to the left separate my entrance hall and parlor. They are one piece and draw to one side of the archway. Fabric color is the same on both sides.
Portieres also separate the parlor from the rear parlor. There is one panel on each side of the archway.
The photo to the Right shows two doorways. The doorway on the right shows two sets of portieres hung separately on each side of the doorway – not in the center of the doorway.
The left doorway shows a portiere hung in the center to one side.
More photos of my restoration and portiers here .
Leather portieres or just a valance were options listed in the 1927 Sears catalog
Fabric color and fringe details were listed in the 1897 Sears catalog .
Other Uses for Portieres
Portieres also make great dresses during times of war! Watch youtube segment here.
For more detailed information on Portieres click here to refer to the Old House Journal article from September 1977 . Scroll to page 103.
dynochick (Jan) says
My house had one on a curved archway on the foyer. We plan on reinstalling one to keep the warm air from going up the stairway to the second floor.
I might also add one in the master bedroom between the dressing room/bathroom area and the main bedroom.
Liz says
Yay! I just installed one in my old house this fall when it started to get cold out! Thanks for the great information, I’m going to use this link when I write about mine! Liz http://www.HometoCottage.com
Deb says
I started to use one this year at the bottom of the staircase to the second floor. I don’t have any registers open upstairs except for the bathroom. It is very noticeable how much heat does not go up the stairs. My portiere is just a tension shower rod with a lined curtain panel but it works. I’ve seen these in a number of old house pictures & I thought I’d try it out.
Joanne says
I did the same with a shower curtain rod and lace panels. Its amazing how much heat even lace keeps in!
Liz says
Wanted to share with you my post about portieres. (I do mention you and link it back to your site) http://www.hometocottage.com/2015/02/09/front-entry-doorway-curtain-portiere/
Ken Roginski says
Good article – thanks for sharing!
markh says
Our main house is 210 years old and 2′ thick stone. This holds the heat great but the modern kitchen and conservatory were added and these don’t hold the heat (especially the conservatory). To help hold the heat in the main house at night we added a curtain. We never knew it actually had a name!
Patricia Ives says
I would have loved to see a picture of your main house. It sounds interesting.
MarilynH says
Actually the woman is wearing a wrapper with Watteau back and leg-o-mutton sleeves.
Jennifer says
Old House Guy, I think I love you.
Ken Roginski says
you’re so sweet!
Ashley says
I noticed the “ghost lines” in the upper corners f our archway into the now diningroom, and thought that there must have been some sort of curtain there when t grandma lived here. Where can I order a portiere or must I improvise? Thanks in advance for your impairment of knowledge. I’ve greatly enjoyed looking at what you’re done with your old house. I’m inspired!
Ken Roginski says
You would probably need to have them custom made. That’s what I did. You can also improvise by putting two curtains together on one rod.
Bob S. says
Hi – I’ve found someone who can make portiéres for me (double sided pinch-pleat curtains), but I don’t know what kind of hook is used to fasten them to the wood drapery hoops –
What did you use on your portiéres?
Thanks!
Bob
Ken Roginski says
Hi Bob – there is a sort of eye hook sewed into the pleats. I used the natural wooden rings stained to match the woodwork which hook into the eye hook. I also have small screws attached to the rod which stops the rings from sliding and keeps them spaced evenly.
Angelika says
I think you’ve cleared up a mystery for me.
Yesterday, I purchased a box of what I thought was vintage material. I liked the dark Victorian colors and had seen that there was some large wool embroidery work incorporated. I thought I could sew up some nice rustic looking table cloths and maybe a pillow or two to sell. When I got the box home, I discovered 2 large panels of material, each 8′ wide by 12′ tall and fringed at top and bottom in dark green wool. Each large panel was created by sewing together (by hand) 8 individual foot wide strips of cloth to create a panel of long stripes. These are of alternating dark green, tan, burnt orange and dark tan material of what I can only describe as a very tightly woven burlap. Each stripe was then hand embroidered in wool from top to bottom in these same colors. (the tan panel with burnt orange, green and dark tan wool … The dark green panel with tan, orange and dark tan etc)
There are some sort of pins attached across one end of each panel. I’d describe them as a cross between a Scottish kilt pin and the hook half of the hook and eye closures you find on vintage clothes. After reading your article, I can only surmise that these must be a set of portieres!
The material used is quite course, the wool looks to be hand spun and the colors of the wool and base material are an exact match, so probably hand dyed from the same dye lot. The embroidery stitches are large as befits the thickness of the wool used but very precisely worked. This coupled with the amount of labor that it must have taken to create these leads me to imagine that they were fashioned by someone that had little money or access to finer materials. I imagine the mistress of the house made do with what she had to try to infuse some style and comfort into her home. Now the question becomes… what to do with them?
Some of the individual strips have started to break free of their neighbors and the fringes have some missing ends but there is no missing embroidery and no fraying of the individual strips. In short, they are in amazing condition for being 100+ years old. There is no way, knowing what I now do, that I can cut these apart and use them for table coverings. Any ideas?
Ken Roginski says
Too bad you are not able to attach photos. I would contact someone that specializes in old textiles before you do anything to them. I’m sure they are very fragile.
Angelika says
I would dearly love for you to be able to see these but I don’t see any way to attach a pic. They are amazingly well intact, largely because the strips of material they are made of aren’t cut anywhere except on the top and bottom. Here the threads have been pulled to form a fringe, which is showing signs of wear. The sides of these strips are finished edge material, so show no wear at all.
All of the material and embroidery is in good condition. It’s only the stitches that hold the long strips of material together that seem to be deteriorating. They are long stitches attaching the edges of the material together rather loosely. It almost seems they have been treated more as decorative than functional. I imagine that these stitches would have born the brunt of pressure any time these curtains were let down or swagged back.
Unfortunately, I’m in a tiny little town in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, which means I don’t know where I would start to look for a textile specialist. The closest real city is Vancouver and that’s about 5.5 hours from here. We’re in agreement that I shouldn’t do anything with these until I’ve contacted someone more in the know. I’ll see what I can find over the internet. Maybe one of the Universities would be able to point me in the right direction.
Thank you so much for both your time and your very informative article. Without it, this portiere set may have been lost for good.
…………………Angie
Ken Roginski says
Hi Angie – Your best bet is to contact a large museum and they can refer you to someone that can restore textiles.
Angelika says
Hi Ken. Hope you enjoyed your 4th of July weekend! Just an update on the portiere curtains….
I contacted the two closest major museums. Getting in contact with anyone there was a feat unto itself. The one in Vancouver had no information for me other than to do a search on the internet for textile conservators. They also informed me that their main focus is on coastal history so unless the textiles were aboriginal in nature, they weren’t interested in my donating them. The Glenbow in Calgary, Alberta which is in the next province over had a warning for me. They suggested that I be prepared for the sticker shock if I was going to try to have these conserved privately. They only had names of conservators based in Ontario. That’s in eastern Canada while I’m just a few hours from the west coast. That’s the down side of living in a large country with a smaller population. So no joy there.
I did however find a local artisan that create items from home spun wool. They confirmed for me that the curtains are indeed entirely made of hand spun wool. They also suggested that the reason the individual panels are so narrow is because they were woven on a table loom. (I can’t even imagine all the work these took.) Speaking of work……
I am becoming quite concerned at the deterioration of the stitches holding these panels together. The more they separate, the more pressure the remaining stitches put on the edge weave of the individual panels and the more risk there is of these panels failing. That would be a disaster that would need major specialized skills to repair. With that in mind I’ve decided to undertake the panel joinery repairs myself.
I have a background in embroidery and the joinery stitches that were originally used in these are really quite simple, so I know I can replicate the work. The artisan ladies agreed to spin some wool for me in the thicknesses I needed. They’ve also done an amazing job of replicating the original dye colors. It wasn’t inexpensive but I now have everything I need to at least stabilize these portieres and save then from further damage. That’s work to come… my winter project. I’ve already completed the one other major fix these curtains needed.
I decided that to store these safely, they needed to be rolled up rather than folded. That meant my living room furniture had to be moved out to give me the floor space to lay them out completely. Because of space restrictions, I had previously only looked at individual sections of these curtains, focusing on the condition of the embroidery and panel stitches. When I did get them completely laid out, I found a number of what looked (and smelled) like old motor oil stains across 2 of the individual panels. I couldn’t store them that way! It’s taken weeks and 5 boxes of cotton swabs but the oil stains are out and the dye colors remain on the panels. ~sigh of relief~ I might have been better off had I just returned that box of material to the auction! LOL
Thanks again (I think) for your article. It set me on this path.
………………….Angie
Ken Roginski says
WOW – you really did your homework! It really sounds like what you have is something very special. Now you can appreciate them even more and have a story to go with them.
Joanne says
Angie…if you ever see this…join some old house groups on Facebook or Instagram, and maybe find someone with an old house searching for something like this. It’s really fun communicating with old house people, and surprising at the networking possibilities! Enjoy the adventure!
Cherie says
This thread is very interesting as I have always been a fan of portieres. I’m in the process of making one for a hallway and then for my dining area. My question is: Where do I purchase a rod, a pocket rod that can curve up around the ceiling?? My ceiling is arched and I’m having such a difficult time fund this item!
Thank You in Advance
Ken Roginski says
Wow – that’s a tough one. If you originally had a portier there you will see ghost marks. I don’t think a rod can be bent like you want. I don’t think this would work anyway since the weight of the curtain will not be evenly distributed. I would check with a custom drapery shop.
LadyKnight1853 says
Hi Old House Guy,
I love this article! One question though… If a Victorian house with a wide doorway between the entrance hall and the parlor has a spandrel, where would the portiere rod have been hung? Would it have been installed near the top of the doorway so the curtains would cover a portion of the spandrel on each side, or would the rod have been installed below the spandrel?
Ken Roginski says
Not really sure. Best to search for historic photos. I would attach the rod at the top behind the portier.
Pinky says
Hi! Nothing interesting to say besides THANX YOU! Being a huge fan of westerns, i see these things all the time (watching Gunsmoke now). Always found them so neat & pretty & interesting but kinda figured they were just some sort of decoration? Silly of me, as hard as life was back then i doubt they did anything just for “looks”! So finally (after years of admiring i took a minute to Google my questions & that’s why i’m here! You’ve told me everything i’ve always wanted to know! Wayyy cooler than i’d ever imagined! So again, THANK YOU for great information! Much appreciated! : )
Danielle says
This post inspired me to install a portiere at the base of a set of narrow stairs in our home in Montana. It’s a mid-80’s timber frame but with quite a lot of wood and stonework that gives it a Craftsmen era aesthetic. The stairs lead down into the library, family room and guest rooms, and keeping heat from the freestanding stove in the library from going straight up the steps is important here in the winter. However there was no room for a door at the foot of the stairs.
The portiere was a perfect solution!
We had a local iron craftsman make a swing-arm rod so the entire portiere can be swung out of the way. Then he fashioned tabs to support the far end of the arm as the fabric is so heavy, the rod would otherwise sag. There’s a tab on the wall to support the arm when the portiere isn’t in use, and one on the other side of the doorway for when it is.
On Etsy, I found a seamstress in England to make the portiere from a Morris print, with velvet on the reverse. We added a swiveling hook to the wall so the tie back could swing with the portiere. Even with the tie back in use, the portiere holds the heat in very well. In the summer, it’s a soft & colorful contrast to the wood-and-leather-heavy library.
Thank you for the inspiration.
Ken Roginski says
Sounds awesome!