In redecorating what was called variously the Queens’ Dressing or Queens’ Sitting Room in 1962-63, Mrs. Kennedy retained much of the layout and some of the furnishings, but she gave the room a bold look, focused on a strong blue-and-white Empire-style fabric and black-and-gold furniture. The influential Paris design firm, Maison Jansen, whose president, Stéphane Boudin, was Mrs. Kennedy’s principal adviser for the White House refurbishing, supplied the brilliant blue, almost cameo-like, cotton fabric printed with white neoclassical motifs—alternating rows of swan-centered circular medallions and flower garland devices. After considering it for the draperies and upholsteries, Mrs. Kennedy selected it to cover the walls as well.¹ Its jewel-like design has remained brilliant. Still in place within the two window reveals are the Jansen-designed draperies and lambrequin-edge valance boards, trimmed in a narrow white fringe made by the American firm, Scalamandre Silks, of New York. The two Truman chairs and a 19th-century daybed supplied by Jansen also retain their 1962 upholstery in this amazingly durable fabric.²

The low-post daybed, painted black with polychrome floral decoration, was flanked by two small black- finished Victorian tables acquired for the White House in the late 19th century, one inlaid with a mother-of-pearl checkerboard. Acquired in 1962 was a pair of mid-19th century “fancy chairs,” black with caned backs and seats, placed at the north end of the room, and a black papier-mâché pedestal table that was placed between the easy chairs before the east window. An ebonized Eastlake-style side chair, donated by a White House doorman, was added in 1963. A European tripod tea table, decorated in imitation of Chinese lacquerware, belonged to Mrs. Kennedy but was left for the White House on her departure in 1963.

To augment these additions, two pieces of mahogany furniture found in the room were lacquered in black with gilt trim. One of the pair of bedside chests, only 10 years old, was refinished and placed on the south wall, but even the much older Taft cheval glass was not immune to such serious decorative change when it was finished to match and left in place in the northwest corner.

Architectural changes were made only in the southeast corner where, during the Truman renovation, the fireplace had been set on the diagonal. A simple rectangular built-in overmantel mirror, flanking sconces set amid columns of plaster stars, the surmounting ornamental plaster medallion, and the mantel itself were removed. The rather undistinguished gray marble mantel was replaced by a more stylish Truman renovation acquisition—a neoclassical white marble mantel with stop-fluted engaged columns and a wreath-carved frieze—that had been removed from the northwest corner room at the opposite end of the building when it was converted into a private quarters kitchen in 1961.

The new mantel was surmounted by a tall gilded looking glass, made c. 1800-20 and donated in 1962, that features extensive use of églomisé or reverse-painted glass, with a gold-on-white garland frieze, but also blue-on-black panels of vines on the base rail and vertical stiles. Complementing the new fabric, a pair of late 19th-century porcelain vases, bright blue with white decoration of classical dancers, was selected from among older White House furnishings for placement on the turreted corners of the mantel shelf.

The Truman dressing table, moved before the north window, was dressed with a skirt fashioned from “white Swiss tambour curtains” trimmed with blue-and-white silk galloon and overlaid with tasseled cord swags, all provided by Jansen.³

A modem chinoiserie lacquered easel mirror, acquired in 1952 seemingly to complement the Truman chintz, remained on the table. Jansen also supplied a white wool rug with a sculpted grid pattern. In February 1963, Chief Usher J. B. West requested from Jansen a blue rug, possibly to match the walls, because “it would be more practical,” but the white rug was not replaced.⁴

Most of these Kennedy decorative elements remain today, with only a few additions from the 1970s. To complement the black furniture, two pieces of black-and-gold Chinese furniture were added—a small mirrored dressing stand, c. 1820-40, in place of mirror, and a pedestal table with a porcelain plaque top, c. 1810, where the papier-mâché table had been between the tub chairs. Consistent with the French fabric is a mid-19th-century oval French Aubusson rug, decorated with scallop fans and garlands in blue, pink, and cream, which replaced the white Kennedy rug in 1971.

The additional object in the room today that links the French and Chinese influences is an octagonal Chinese lacquered tea box. It is lined with a pink French wallpaper left over from papering rooms in the White House. Dolley Madison gave the scraps of paper (the rest of which later burned in the 1814 fire) to her friend, Mary Latrobe, wife of the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Mrs. Kennedy would doubtless be pleased to find this piece of White House history, acquired for the permanent collection in 1971, on the center table that she donated for use in the room.