Vermeil Room, John F. Kennedy Administration

This photograph of the Vermeil room before First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's restoration project was taken by White House photographer Robert L. Knudsen on May 8, 1962. The Vermeil Room is located on the Ground Floor of the White House. In 1957, during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, Margaret Thompson Biddle bequeathed her collection of late 18th and early 19th-century vermeil, or gilded silver, to the White House. The Vermeil Room was named after Biddle's collection, which is on display on the room's shelves. The portraits of first ladies have traditionally hung from the room's walls.