This room is called the Cinnamon Drawing Room because of the colour of the damask on its walls.

Originally, the room was decorated in white damask, and was known as the White Drawing Room. It was decorated mainly with mirrors. Over time, these have been replaced by portraits of the Lascelles family, painted by some of the leading British portrait artists of the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Several portraits in this room were painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts. His portrait of Edwin Lascelles, the builder of Harewood House, hangs above the fireplace.

Harewood has a collection of over 300 portraits. Until recently, they were exclusively images of white, wealthy individuals, mostly members of the Lascelles family.  The current Earl and Countess have begun to redress the historic lack of diversity in Harewood’s portrait collection by commissioning a series of portraits of Black men and women who have contemporary connections to Harewood. The first in the ‘Missing Portraits’ series depicted Arthur France MBE, founder of the Leeds West Indian Carnival. The most recent addition depicts the British actor and writer, David Harewood OBE, whose ancestors were enslaved by the Lascelles family.

The White Drawing Room’s original seat furniture, still in the room today, was designed by Thomas Chippendale Junior (Thomas Chippendale’s son) in the 1780s. It was celebrated for an unusual, two-tone gilding scheme.