36 
House & Garden 
THE CHINTZ IN YOUR CURTAINS 
Behind It Lies the Romance of the East and the Clipper Ships that Makes the 
Designs Even More Cheery and Interesting 
AARON DAVIS 
S OME DAY a man 
wall write a book, 
and it will be called 
“The Glory of the Com¬ 
monplaces,” and on its 
pages will be listed those 
humble things that are hum¬ 
ble only because the lives of 
many men and the passing 
of many years have made 
possible the wide use of 
each item. And in this list 
wall be those printed cloths 
that serve to make homes 
hospitable and gracious. 
Chintz, the word, is from 
the Hindoo “Chint,” mean¬ 
ing “full of color.” During 
the early part of the 19th 
Century “Indienne” was a 
trade term for printed cali¬ 
coes, and the great cloth¬ 
printing works near Rouen 
are still called “Indien- 
neries.” Thus India, so far 
as we know, was the orig- 
Chintz is especially use¬ 
ful for country house 
couch covers because of 
the brightness of design 
and color. W. & J. 
Slo'ane, decorators 
inal source of printed cloth. 
The merchant marine su¬ 
premacy of England started 
with the British East India 
Company. This corpora¬ 
tion was founded to fetch 
native wares from India and 
distribute them in the com¬ 
pany ships to the great mar¬ 
kets of the world. Among 
the chief articles of rare 
merchandise which these 
bluff-bowed vessels carried 
were the glorious old hand- 
painted calico curtains, sold 
into England and France, 
to lend a foreign savor to 
the manor house and the 
chateau. These original 
curtains were of large pat¬ 
tern with no repeat to the 
design, and were primarily 
intended to drape the ban¬ 
quet hall of some Oriental, 
nabob. Their use was lim¬ 
ited both through the size 
Curtains of glazed chintz, 
reproduced in England 
from an old Italian pat¬ 
tern were used in the 
room below. Mrs. Mo- 
nod, decorator 
The design at the top is “Harwich Bowl” 
and that at the bottom “Queen Anne 
Lace”, both English chintzes rich in col¬ 
or and pleasing in design. Courtesy of 
the Erskine-Danjorth Corporation 
The “Carlisle Butterfly” and the “Lion 
Crest” are two designs in old chintz re¬ 
produced for modern decoration, being 
especially adaptable to country house in¬ 
teriors. Courtesy of Erskine-Danjorth 
