Washington Winter Show 2019

53 53 In warm weather, George and Martha Washington entertained in style on Mount Vernon’s piazza, as depicted in this 1796 watercolor by architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe. The Piazza Mount Vernon’s two-story piazza (or portico) offered a commanding view of the Potomac River, a place to catch summer breezes, and a pleasant spot to enjoy refreshments when weather permitted. The celebrated architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe visited Mount Vernon in July 1796, and rendered this watercolor of the Washington family taking tea or coffee at the north end of the piazza. The group includes (from left to right): a standing man looking through a spyglass toward the Potomac River (possibly Latrobe himself, or Washington’s longtime personal secretary, Tobias Lear); Nelly Custis, wearing a Grecian-style gown and leaning against a pillar; and a young boy, probably one of Lear’s sons, sitting on the stone pavers. Martha Washington is shown seated behind a breakfast table set with a silver hot-water urn and china serving wares, while her husband relaxes to the right of the table, dressed in buff breeches and “plain blue coat,” as Latrobe’s journal account noted. Nelly’s dog, Frisk, frolics on the lawn. Today Mount Vernon annually welcomes more than one million visitors from around the world. The historic estate is owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, an independent nonprofit that does not accept federal or state funding. The organization has a highly public mission, which is to share George Washington’s life, character, leadership, and legacy as broadly as possible in order to inspire this and future generations. By viewing George and Martha’s lives through the popular lenses of dining, hospitality, and entertaining, we gain a compelling personal perspective on this extraordinary pair of Americans.  ■ Sources The Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia; An Englishman in America, 1785: Being the Diary of Joseph Hadfield (1933) by Douglas Sinclair Robertson ; Men and Times of the Revolution; or, Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, including Journals and Travels in Europe and America, from 1777 to 1842 (1856) by Winslow C. Watson; Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, by His Adopted Son, George Washington Parke Custis (1860) by Benson Lossing; and The Diary of William Maclay and Other Notes on Senate Debates (1988), Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen E. Veit, eds. All images courtesy of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. Stephen A. McLeod is Director of Library Programs for the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon. Susan P. Schoelwer is the Executive Director of Historic Preservation and Collections and Robert H. Smith Curator at George Washington’s Mount Vernon.