Washington Winter Show 2025

49 49 Anderson family and Society of the Cincinnati history to its original glory. In making arrangements to have her Hillwood home become a museum, Marjorie Merriweather Post specified in her will that the future Hillwood museum staff could acquire “occasional items of special significance to the museum’s existing collections.” In addition to expanding and filling gaps in the collections Marjorie Post had assembled during her lifetime, Hillwood’s curators have acquired select modern pieces relevant to her collecting passions, sensibilities, and taste. A superb example is the Madame de Pompadour soup tureen and platter by the contemporary artist Cindy Sherman, manufactured by Limoges for Artes Magnus (1990). Based on an original design commissioned by Madame de Pompadour (née Poisson) in 1756 at the Manufacture Royale de Sèvres, the tureen features a photo-silkscreen image of Cindy Sherman as Madame de Pompadour in its rococo cartouche, as well as a pile of fish inside the tureen as a nod toMadame de Pompadour’s maiden name. At Hillwood, this modern homage takes its place among Majorie Post’s exquisite collection of eighteenth-century French porcelain, an addition that surely would have delighted her. Reminiscing about her decision to make Hillwood a museum open to the public, Marjorie Post wrote, “I want young Americans to see how someone lived in the twentieth century and how this person could collect works of art the way I have…. Maybe it’ll be an incentive to some people.” For each of their eras, this is indeed a mission shared by all seven houses in our exhibition—to educate, illuminate, delight, and inspire all who seek to preserve the future of our past. Fig. 7: Madame de Pompadour (née Poisson) soup tureen and platter, by Cindy Sherman, manufactured by Limoges for Artes Magnus, 1990. Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, photographed by Edward Owens.