Reconstructed drawing room of Sir William Burrell; part of the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Scotland

A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained. Sir William Burrell ( July 9 1861 - March 29 1958) was a Glaswegian shipping merchant and Philanthropist. The Burrell Collection is an art collection in the city of Glasgow, in Scotland. Glasgow (ˈglæzgoʊ is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. A room, in Architecture, is any distinguishable space within a structure 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). The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED) published by the Oxford University Press (OUP is a comprehensive Dictionary of the English 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. The great chamber was the second most important room in a Medieval or Tudor English castle palace mansion or Manor house after the Great hall A state room in a large European Mansion is usually one of a suite of very grand rooms which were designed to impress ^[1]

In eighteenth-century London, the royal morning receptions that the French called levées were called "drawing rooms", with the sense originally that the privileged members of court would gather in the drawing room outside the king's bedroom, where he would make his first formal public appearance of the day. Lever ("rising" adopted in English as levée — initially the simple act of getting up in the morning— was raised to a ceremonial custom at the court

During the American Civil War, in the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia, the drawing room was just off of the parlor where C.S.A. President Jefferson Davis would greet his guests. Causes of the war See also Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War The coexistence of a slave-owning South The Museum of the Confederacy is located in Richmond Virginia. This article is about the city of Richmond the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Parlour (or parlor) from the French word parloir, from parler ("to speak" denotes an "audience chamber" The Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, and CSA) formed as the government set up from 1861 Jefferson Finis Davis ( June 3, 1808 &ndash December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as President of the At the conclusion of these greetings, the men would remain in the parlor to talk politics and the women would withdraw to the drawing room for their own conversation. This was common practice in the affluent circles of the Southern United States. The Southern United States &mdashcommonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South &mdashconstitutes a large distinctive

Until the mid-twentieth century, after a dinner the ladies of a dinner party would withdraw to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen at table, where the cloth was removed. After an interval of conversation, the gentlemen would rejoin the ladies in the drawing room.

The term drawing room is not used as widely as it once was, and tends to be used in Britain only by those who also have other reception rooms, such as a morning room, a nineteenth-century designation for a sitting-room, often with east-facing exposure, suited for daytime calls, or the middle-class lounge, a late nineteenth-century designation for a room in which to relax; hence the drawing room is the smartest room in the house, usually used by the adults of the family when entertaining. The American equivalent was the parlor. Parlour (or parlor) from the French word parloir, from parler ("to speak" denotes an "audience chamber" In French usage the room and the social gathering it contained are equally the salon. A salon is a gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through

Railroad usage

The term has also been applied to passenger trains, supplanting parlor car, to designate some of the most spacious and expensive private accommodations available on board a sleeping car or private railroad car. A train is a connected series of vehicles that move along a track ( Permanent way) to transport freight or passengers from one place to another The sleeping car or sleeper is a railroad passenger car that can accommodate all its passengers in beds of one kind or another primarily for the purpose of making A private railroad car, private railway coach, private car or private varnish is a railroad passenger car which was either originally built or In North America, it meant a room that slept three or more, with a private washroom. See also Toilet A washroom, public toilet, public convenience, comfort room, toilet room, bathroom, water closet While Amtrak has retired cars built with drawing rooms, they are currently still used by VIA Rail Canada, although the traditional nomenclature is seen as archaic and are officially sold as "triple bedrooms". The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Doing business as Amtrak, is a Government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971 VIA Rail Canada (also referred to as VIA Rail and VIA; ˈviːə 'vee-ah' is an independent Crown corporation offering intercity passenger rail

Drawing-room plays

The drawing room, being a room in the house to entertain visitors, gave its name to drawing-room comedy, a genre of theatrical productions and motion pictures. A literary genre is a category of literary composition Genres may be determined by Literary technique, tone, Content, or even (as in the case of fiction Theatre (or theater, see spelling differences) is the branch of the Performing arts defined by Bernard Beckerman as what "occurs when one Beginning with the early forms of drama, the drawing room play has evolved to encompass comedy as well as to include the forms of the dramatic monologue. The play format itself has also grown out of the traditional drawing room performance and back into main street theater and film. While the drawing room itself has fallen out of favor, the play format has continued to provide a source of entertainment.

Drawing-room comedy

Drawing room comedy typically features wit and verbal banter among wealthy, leisured, genteel, upper class characters. Wit is a form of intellectual Humour. A wit (person is someone skilled in making witty remarks Is a concept in Sociology that refers to the group of people at the top of a Social hierarchy. Drawing room comedy is also sometimes called the "comedy of manners. The comedy of manners satirizes the manners and affectations of a Social class, often represented by Stock characters, such as the Miles gloriosus " Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and several of the plays of Noel Coward are typical works of the genre. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900 was an Irish Playwright, Novelist, poet and Author of The Importance of Being Earnest is a play by Oscar Wilde. It premiered on February 14, 1895 at the St Sir Noël Peirce Coward ( 16 December 1899 26 March 1973) was an English Actor, Playwright George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House adds an undercurrent of social criticism to the genre. Heartbreak House is a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1919 Cary Grant appeared in a number of filmed drawing-room comedies. Ernst Lubitsch was especially known as a director of drawing-room comedies. Ernst Lubitsch ( January 28, 1892 – November 30, 1947) was a German -born Jewish Film director.

Notes

Nicholas Cooper, Houses of the Gentry 1480-1680 (English Heritage) 1999: "Parlours and withdrawing rooms 289-93.

External links

• Victorian Drawing Room