Please inquire for size, pricing and availability.

"The influence of white-muslin curtains in giving an air of grace and elegance to a room is astonishing. White curtains really create a room out of nothing."
Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Womanz`s Home: or, Principles of Domestic Science, Boston: H.A. Brown & Co., 1869.

Our model for the Helena panel was a design drafted in 1826 with a heavy scroll border and a bellflower powerdering typical of Grecian designs of the early to mid 19th century.

This panel exhibits the proper scale and weight of pattern for large windows of American Greek Revival homes, and yet has a delicacy and beauty that befits the era. It looks well either hung straight for privacy or pulled back onto tiebacks in period style. Helena is bold enough to stand alone and the panels are light enough to serve as an under-drape for a heavier valance.

Madras Muslin is an ancient form of weaving, also known as figured muslin, that was popular for curtain panels before Nottingham lace was developed in the mid-19th century. Numerous watercolors of rooms from the 1820s to 1850s show figured muslin curtains, often with "powdering" of a small sprig or floral pattern and scroll borders.

Curators of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, who were having difficulty finding suitable curtains a pair of Greek Revival rooms that were being installed in the new Arts of the Americas Wing in 2010, asked John Burrows to style historically-informed curtain panels. The MFA made a significant commitment to showcase decorative arts and period rooms in their new Arts of the Americas Wing and the Roswell Gleason rooms are featured in this major expansion of the museum.

Roswell Gleason built his home in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1840 and the dining room and parlor are furnished and decorated to exhibit American style of the mid-19th century. Burrows & Company also supplied Wilton carpet for these rooms as well as the figured muslin curtains.

Color: Burrows & Company is initially offering the Helena panel in bleached white as our research indicates that pure white was a preferred finish in the Greek Revival era.

Mrs. H.R. Haweis, in The Art of Decoration (London, 1881), writes of a contemporary taste for off-white figured muslin drapes instead of the pure white favored in her grandmother's era. "Yet how we used to puzzle over the ancient taste for so tinting it quite white!" For large orders we can have the curtains tinted per specification of the customer.