Covering the windows. (Design Notes).

In an instructive article published in this magazine in August 1985, Elisabeth Donaghy Garrett wrote: "Although late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings illustrate the extensive use of shutters and blinds, it is often difficult to determine exactly what is meant in early written accounts by the term Venetian blind since it was used interchangeably to refer to slatted blinds operated by cords and tapes and hinged exterior shutters with laths pivoting in a fixed frame." The confusion between what each word meant even vexed George Washington when he attempted to order blinds for Mount Vernon in the late 1780s.

It is known, however, that wooden venetian blinds were in use in America by the 1760s, the fashion for them having traveled here from London. In early paintings that depict blinds, they are invariably painted green. This preference diminished by the mid-nineteenth century, when it was generally held that the dark color had two drawbacks: it faded and it was more likely to show dirt Stained wooden blinds were also used at this time.

At Monticello there were what Jefferson called Venetian porches, which were fitted out with jalousies, or louvered blinds, constructed according to a drawing in Jefferson's hand (Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston). These have ...