A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. The name is derived from the sixteenth-century terms withdrawing room and withdrawing chamber, which remained in use through the seventeenth century, and made its first written appearance in 1642 (OED). In a large sixteenth- to early eighteenth-century English house, a withdrawing room was a room to which the owner of the house, his wife, or a distinguished guest who was occupying one of the main apartments in the house could "withdraw" for more privacy. It was often off the great chamber (or the great chamber's descendant, the state room or salon) and usually led to a formal, or "state" bedroom.
Read more about Drawing Room: History and Development, Railroad Usage, Drawing-room Plays
Famous quotes containing the words drawing room, drawing and/or room:
“In the drawing room [of the Queens palace] hung a Venus and Cupid by Michaelangelo, in which, instead of a bit of drapery, the painter has placed Cupids foot between Venuss thighs. Queen Caroline asked General Guise, an old connoisseur, if it was not a very fine piece? He replied Madam, the painter was a fool, for he has placed the foot where the hand should be.”
—Horace Walpole (17171797)
“A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.”
—James Thurber (18941961)
“Haggerty: Girls! Girls! Girls! Be careful of my hats.
Chorus Girl: Well, we gotta get down on the stage.
Haggerty: I dont care. I wont allow you to ruin them.
Dressing Room Matron: See, I told you. They were too high and too wide.
Haggerty: Well, Big Woman, I designed the costumes for the show, not the doors for the theater.
Dressing Room Matron: I know that. If you had, theyd have been done in lavender.”
—James Gleason (18861959)