Washington Winter Show 2025

47 history of the founding era across the United States, fostering personal and collective efforts to identify, document, and preserve tangible evidence of the no-longer-new country’s origins. The exhibition’s twentieth-century collectors, Henry Francis du Pont at Winterthur, Larz and Isabel Anderson at Anderson House, and Marjorie Merriweather Post at Hillwood, exemplify a notable shift in American collecting prowess— moving beyond the patriotic nostalgia that prevailed for much of the nineteenth century to a more worldly and sophisticated approach based on connoisseurship and aesthetics. Their wealth and international connections enabled them to collect broadly and deeply to make their homes living museums reflecting their personal tastes, passions, and expertise. The institutions that saved and preserved our seven historic houses represent a succinct survey of historic preservation in America. The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, founded in 1853 to purchase and preserve George Washington’s home, was the first national historic preservation organization. The Ladies’ pioneering work became the model for the Robert E. Lee Memorial Association at Stratford Hall (1935) and the National Society of Colonial Dames of America at Gunston Hall (1949). Following her husband’s death in 1937, Isabel Anderson donated Anderson House to the Society of the Cincinnati, which continues to maintain and preserve the house and its collections and open them for public tours. Henry Francis du Pont and Marjorie Merriweather Post each envisioned their homes becoming public institutions as they developed and curated their collections. The Winterthur Museumwas opened during Henry Francis du Pont’s lifetime, in 1951, and since his death in 1969 continues as the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. Following Marjorie Merriweather Post’s death in 1973, Hillwood was opened as a museum in 1977 under the direction of the Marjorie Merriweather Post Foundation. Tudor Place remained in the Peter family for six generations. The last private owner, Armistead Peter 3rd, made provisions for a family charitable foundation to take over the management of the estate at the time of his death in 1983, and the house and gardens were opened to the public in 1988. Our earliest house, Stratford Hall, completed in the 1740s, presents two exquisite textile pieces that tell stories of family provenance. A small sewing purse—or ‘housewife”—embroidered with flowers and strawberries is believed to have been made by Hannah Ludwell Lee, the first mistress of Stratford Hall. It was inherited by her daughter, Hannah Corbin, and passed down as a treasured heirloom through four generations of the Lee family who may have added their own embellishments. It returned to Stratford Hall in 1981 as the gift of Cornelia Lee Post Niver. A handsome cream silk waistcoat, with embroidery accented with metallic thread and silver metal spangles, belonged to Thomas Lee Shippen, the grandson of Stratford Hall’s first proprietors, Thomas and Hannah Ludwell Lee. It was preserved and passed down through three generations of the Shippen family. William B. Shippen, and his brother’s widow, Mrs. Edward Shippen, presented the waistcoat to Stratford Hall in 1996 in memory of Mrs. Lloyd Parker Shippen. A fine French tea set, circa 1790, from the collection of Gunston Hall also represents the idea of “homecoming”—the return of an item to its original collection after years in different hands. The gold-decorated set, which includes an urn-shaped teapot, tray, cup and saucer, and cream pitcher, carries the provenance that it was given to Gunston Hall’s original owner, George Mason, by his son JohnMason, who had acquired it while conducting business in France in the early 1790s. The set returned to Gunston Hall nearly two centuries later as the gift of Mason family descendants. To illustrate the value of both original documentation and ongoing research that can bring forth new discoveries, Mount Vernon features furniture upholstered in a vibrant Saxon blue silk and worsted wool damask, which was created to represent the long-lost originals that graced the Mount Vernon Front Parlor during George Washington’s lifetime. The original furniture suite, which included eight chairs (or “backstools”) and a sofa, was given to George Washington by his friend and neighbor, George William Fairfax of Belvoir, at the time of the Fairfax family’s return to England in 1774. Although the inventory of Mount Vernon taken at the time of Washington’s death had indicated the quantity of furniture in the Front