National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Resource History and Description of Existing Conditions
accounts and similar occupations. The appointments should therefore comprise a writing
desk, with pigeonholes, drawers, and cupboards, and a comfortable lounge, or lit de repos,
for resting and reading . . . As the boudoir is generally a small room, it is peculiarly suited to
the more delicate styles of painting or stucco ornamentation . . . A study of boudoir
decoration in the last century, especially in France, will show the admirable sense of
proportion regulating the treatment of these little rooms. Their adornment was naturally
studied with special care by the painters and decorators of an age in which women played so
important a part. 764
Ogden Codman decorated the Boudoir at the same time that he did Mrs. Vanderbilt's
Bedroom. The room is documented by ten drawings. 765 The original plan of the Boudoir called
for a niche with a sofa to balance the window on the opposite wall. This was executed as a flat
panel with a mirror, probably to enlarge the closet behind. The two doors on the western wall
are not placed symmetrically, and the door from the Bedroom is not directly opposite the
mantel. These imbalances must certainly have irked Codman's sense of balance and proportion.
There is a red marble mantel with a mirror and painted panel. Like Mrs. Vanderbilt's Bedroom,
it is Louis XV in style with painted panels within gilded molding. The decoration is lavish,
creating a jewel-box of a room, very much in the tradition of French royal interiors. It was
painted in three different shades of grey. The cornice has sculpted plaster ornament on a cove.
The drawings indicate scrolls and foliage over an x-shaped cross, but the ornament as executed
is musical instruments. Conversely, the overdoors were planned to be putti playing musical
instruments, with painted panels of frolicking putti over the gilt-bordered panels. These original
paintings were done in Paris and arranged through Duveen. The Vanderbilts were happy at the
time of the original decoration with the tonalities of the original paintings and used them as a
model for H. Siddons Mowbray to tone down the Living Room ceiling. 766
The Boudoir was lavishly furnished with gilded Louis XV-style furniture made in France.
Codman designed several pieces of seating furniture such as the lit de repos or day bed. 767 Other
pieces of seating furniture include a caned armchair, a caned open armchair, and two pairs of
caned side chairs, an armchair, and a caned settee. In addition, there was also a dressing table by
Paul Sormani, 768 a fall-front desk, kidney-shaped center table, and a screen. The draperies were
cream silk with intricate embroidery. The original rug was a custom-made Savonnerie carpet,
pale green with a darker green border. The lighting fixtures including a chandelier, four
sconces, and a pair of lights on the mantel are ormolu with delicately painted porcelain flowers.
The accessories that survive are mostly French and consist of a mantel garniture of a clock and
pair of candelabra, a pair of porcelain figurines, an ormolu wall clock, and an Oriental flower
pot.
764 Wharton and Codman, 1897, 130-131.
765 Drawings located at Avery Library: West & South Elevation with details of plaster decoration, East &
North Elevation with details of plaster decoration, Plan of Cornice, Floor Plan, Floor Plan of Suite, and
Plan.
Watercolor Elevations located at Metropolitan Museum: North, South, East, and West.
766 Frederick Vanderbilt wrote to Stanford White "more on the style of the two that are now up in Mrs.
V's bedroom and boudoir (as to tone, I mean) which were painted in Paris for Duveen." SW Papers, July
1, 1899, Box 19:2.
767 See Drawings Avery Library, Codman Collection 1000.009.03188 and 1000.009.03189.
768 Paul Sormani exhibited a very similar dressing table at the World's Columbian Exposition. Menz and
McTernan, 48.
140