Old House Journal

inspirations for INTERIOR POLYCHROMY

It’s not new—the Parthenon, as you may know, was not always white, but was originally painted in many colors. Greek statues once were painted! And American Colonial interiors were not a sea of whitewash, after all. Washington used strong Prussian blue and verde green at Mount Vernon, and Jefferson chose chromium yellow for the dining room at Monticello. For sheer complexity, however, nothing comes close to the polychromy of 19th-century

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