- [Matt] And we're live. - Welcome back to Mount Vernon. Here we are. I am Doug Bradburn. I'm the president and CEO of George Washington's Mount Vernon, and this is Mansion Mondays. We are live streaming from inside George Washington's extraordinary home to give you a chance to
see a little bit more of the place, and the life
of our great founding father. I know a lot of you are at home with students doing classes, or just the general public
goin' a little stir crazy, so please, go ahead and
post some questions as well. We have some links below
on our YouTube feed, through our Facebook feed as
well, and spread the word. We are in, what is my favorite room in George Washington's mansion house, this is called the New Room. We call it the New Room. It is a spectacular space. It was an incredible public presentation of the ideas and the stories that George Washington wanted to tell about himself and about the nation in the era after the American Revolution. So, as we talked about last time, George Washington inherited
a house that was much smaller than the one he would leave us, a house that he added an extra floor on, ultimately a third floor, and built out a large cellar, but he also extended its wings, and so we are in one of
those extensions right now. This is an extension to
the core of the house that Washington had laid out, and had started to be built in
the 1770s, right at the time that the American
Revolution is breaking out. So he actually leaves Mount Vernon, and doesn't come back
for eight years in 1775, when he goes from Philadelphia to become the Command in Chief of
the new American Army outside Boston in 1775. At that time, though, the
plans are already laid to build this space, and it would've been framed up over the course of the American Revolution
itself, but not finished. So when George Washington
actually comes back to Mount Vernon in 1781, at the time that the
Americans and the French are getting ready to assault Yorktown, this space would've been an empty shell. It might've had some plaster on the walls, but it wouldn't have had a
complete floor put in yet. There still was work being
done to finish this space out. And so the story of
getting this room finished to look how it is, is really the last two
decades of his life, when he comes back to Mount Vernon after the American Revolution, and I wanna talk to you about some of the exciting things in this space. But let's get our hands
around it to begin with. First off, it is extraordinary. It is a very large space in a private home by the standards of 18th century Virginia, by the standards of 18th
century North America. This space alone would've been bigger than most houses for most of the people that lived in Virginia would've lived in. So it's a grand space, and it's offset even more by the fact that it's two stories high with this beautiful curved ceiling. It just gives you a
sense of light and space. It's really extraordinary. The boards, the floor
boards are original in here. They are southern pine. They're about 24 feet long, each of them. And we've recently done a tremendous job of restoring this room. I think it opened after
the restoration in 2014, which was a multi-year project to understand the architectural
character of the room, the curatorial character of the room, so what was here, when was it acquired, and also, really the symbolic
power of the room itself. What did Washington
wanna say in this space? Now, for many years, if you
read a book about Mount Vernon, this space would've been
called the large dining area, a large enough space which
you could have a big meal. Because wee have a lot of guests. We know that Washington
had many, many guests here. He often called it a well-resorted tavern. And so there would've been food
served in here on occasion. It was also a grand parlor. It's a gallery. It's an art gallery. It might be called a banqueting
hall in the 18th century. It's a space where you
can do lots of things. We have set it up right now to have a musical performance. Here behind me is an
extraordinary instrument, the Nelly's harpsichord, which I'll talk about a little bit later. And so it had multiple
uses as a flexible space. But first and foremost, I think we think about the New Room as a place where George Washington is really telling a story about
the things he cares about in his story, the story of Washington, and the story of the country. So remember, he comes back
to this space in the 1780s, after giving up his
commission at Annapolis. He arrives back at Mount Vernon, actually, on Christmas in 1783. And very quickly, in the next few years, he's gonna start working
to finish out this room. Finishing the plaster. He's gonna get a mantel
piece and put it here. And then, eventually, over time, he'll add a lot of
furniture, and furnishings, that most of which you see around me actually came in in the 1790s. So let's talk a little bit about, what are some of the great
things about this space? Well, I think one of the
things that leaps out at you when come in here, when
you walk through the door, is the incredible ceiling,
and just the scope of it. and the ceiling tells us one story that George Washington
emphasized throughout his life. So the ceiling here is this
beautiful stucco plaster work in high ornament, an
ornament that's intended to reflect the classical ideals
of the Roman Republic, and has different elements
of agriculture in here. Now the first story that Americans told about George Washington,
and really about the nation after American independence, is the story of George
Washington retiring to his farm, like the ancient heroes of old. There was one in particular,
named Cincinnatus. A Roman senator, named Cincinnatus, who, in the 5th century B.C., had come out of his
retirement to save Rome, led the army successfully
against an invader, and then rather than taking over authority to control the state,
he retired to his farm. So George Washington was compared
to the great Cincinnatus, and it fit very well with
what Washington wanted to do when he wasn't fighting
the war, in retirement, which was agriculture,
and agriculture reform, and he believed that Mount Vernon could be an example for the
community and the nation about best agricultural practices. And so some of those things you see in that ceiling represent agriculture, and it brings it up in great detail. Another place we see
agriculture in this room is in this extraordinary mantel piece. Carrara marble mantel
given to George Washington in the 1780s by a fan. A fan bought it. It was a man named Samuel
Vaughan, who was an Englishman, who was a great admirer
of George Washington for the ideals of liberty that he fought for in
the American Revolution, and for Washington's
desire to make this space in this home a representative place. And Samuel Vaughan comes to
Mount Vernon in the 1780s. He actually draws a
beautiful representation of what the estate
looked like at that time. We call it the Vaughan Plan. We own it. It's in our library here, and I encourage you to take a look on our resources online
to learn more about it. Samuel Vaughan presents, also,
a presentation print drawing of the estate, which is a
beautiful piece as well. So we can see exactly what
Mount Vernon looked like when Samuel Vaughan visited. He also kept a journal of his trip, which we also have in our library. So Vaughan's an important
person here at Mount Vernon, where we're constantly
trying to figure out how best to bring back the estate, how it looked in the 18th century. So this extraordinary mantel
piece is really impressive. Vaughan took this out of his
own estate in Essex in England. It's Carrara marble,
and it's complimented by those beautiful images of husbandry. So there's a shepherdess, and there's a husband man with cattle, there's children, there's the plow. These are elements that are crucial to George Washington's
conception of himself as a farmer, as a reformer in husbandry. And, in fact, it's an interesting story, because when the mantel first arrived, you'd think about this
intricate marble mantle, it arrived in, like,
13 boxes, or 11 boxes, and when Washington was writing
a thank you note to Vaughan, he thought that "It might be too grand for my Republican style", as he called it. So his Republican style meaning
simplicity, not monarchical. Classical, like classical Rome. He didn't wanna overdo
it with embellishments, as had often been the appeal
in the Colonial period. But then when Washington installed it, I think, we don't know, you
know, the moment where he said, "You know what? "That is good enough for me,
and I'm gonna stick with it." But we do know is it had
these agricultural elements, and I think that's probably the reason he considered it not too grand,
and it's a beautiful piece. It really is extraordinary
and makes the room. It probably would've been one of the first Carrara marble
mantels in North America at the time it was installed. So Washington's room is
gonna take a lot of cues from this beautiful mantel, but Washington's room itself
is going to be a leader in decorative art design,
and interior design in the immediate post-independence
period in America. And I'll talk a little bit about that, and I think that's a good
one to transition to, because I mentioned the
enthusiasm for ancient Rome, and when we're talking about Rome, they're thinking about Republican Rome, so before Rome becomes an empire. And the idea in this space is really to present a classical motif, to represent the
simplicity and the elegance of a Republican universe, and George Washington likes that idea, and we see it deployed here throughout. One place you can particularly see it, you can't see probably very well some of the elements in the
plaster work in the ceiling, but there's wonderful
elements above these, the friezes above these doors, and which George Washington's using a new style of ornament
called composite ornament in which you take sort of a putty, and you can shape it
through a wooden block that can be carved very precisely, and re-create these little things. So in between the windows,
and the friezes above, you have this beautiful
white on green detail, which is really intended to show a more delicate, simple style representative of what
Europeans of this time think ancient Rome would've looked like. And, of course, this is
really in the period where Pompeii has only recently been discovered, and the great friezes,
and the great murals, and wall paintings in that ancient city were coming out and
influencing ideas about what classical Rome would've looked like. And so Washington's room here, as a space that's representing kind of American take on classical design, is one of the first in the country to really bring that new style to bear, and it's a room that would've been seen by hundreds of very influential people as they came to Mount
Vernon over the years. So what are some other
elements we see in this room? So it's a very beautiful space. This green is actually wallpaper. There's squares of wallpaper
that are painted and laid out, and it's a beautiful application here. And other things we see,
is a lot of the furniture is original to the time. Some of the earliest things in here are these candle stands from the 1750s. And, in fact, you can see a
different architectural style in the candle stands then you'll see, for instance, in the sideboards. Next, the candle stands, we think, we know that Washington ordered
candle stands in the 1750s from a Fredericksburg artisan. These are, what we call,
in the Rococo style. In fact, they represent what some people think of as Chippendale. So Thomas Chippendale has
a great book that comes out for gentleman, for craftsmen,
to have the latest style, and this Rococo is elegant. It has a lot of flourishes to
it, but it's delicate as well. You see a lot of motion,
a lot of greenery, and natural items at play in here. So that represents sort
of like a Colonial, high Rococo style, and
you'll see some of that, if we get a chance to get
into the front parlor, there's carvings all around
George Washington's mantel there which represent a more Rococo
Colonial style of taste. Compare that with the elegance and classicism of the sideboards. So we have two great sideboards on either side of this
extraordinary window, which I'll talk about in a moment. The Aitken sideboards, we call 'em. They're done by John Aitken
in Philadelphia in the 1790s. 1797, when Washington's
leaving the presidency, and coming back to Mount Vernon, he has these ordered and
brought back to Mount Vernon, along with the beautiful
green chairs behind me. Made in Philadelphia. We have a lot of the
originals in this room, and some reproductions. In the case of the sideboards, we have one we know is George
Washington's actual sideboard, and then the other one
is also by John Aitken. We don't know, we don't think it was the one owned by Washington. But essentially, it
represents the same ideals. A couple other elements of
the room that stand out, I mean, the window I maybe
should've began with. It really is extraordinary. A highlight to the rom. It's a Venetian, what we
call a Venetian window. It use to be called a Palladian window, because of this design,
which is quite common in the 18th century in grand buildings. Usually in churches. You'll see it in large structures as a beautiful form that allows
a lot of light to come in, but also gives a really elegant
style to the room itself. So a couple of other elements in here I think that bear talking about. Maybe first, before, I wanna
talk about another story after the agricultural
story that's being told, and that's the mirrors here. These beautiful looking glass, the large looking glass
that we have over here, that's the original looking glass that George Washington
put in here in the 1790s after he returned from the presidency. In fact, that looking glass was in the president's dwelling house in the Presidential
Mansion in Philadelphia. And, actually, in New York as well when he was president
of the United States. That looking glass was acquired
from the Comte de Moustier, who was a French envoy
to the United States when we were a brand new country, and he had to go back to France. In the midst of the challenge of the French Revolution in 1789, George Washington began
renting his house in New York, and acquired a lot of his furniture in the great French style, as well as these
beautiful looking glasses. The French were really the leaders in engraining glass of this
size in the 18th century. It couldn't be made in anywhere in the United States in the 1780s. That's how provincial we
still were as a young country. And I think this looking glass was really one of the powerful, kind of creepy elements here,
because you think about, that's the original
glass in that one there. So think about all of the people who have looked in that glass, and all the people in George
Washington's presidency. All his Cabinet members
would've looked at themselves in that incredible mirror. And then think about all of the people who have looked at it here at Mount Vernon over the centuries, not only during George Washington's time, and you can rattle them off,
like the Marquis de Lafayette, like Thomas Jefferson. And then look at it through the era when the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association saved Mount Vernon in the 1850s. That looking glass
would've been brought back at some point in the 19th century, and, again, people would've
been seeing themselves in that. So millions of people in America have looked into that looking glass. And you think, "What if
it was a giant iPhone, and it took little snapshots
of everybody who looked at it?" Think of that remarkable
progression of people that connects in a tangible,
if spooky way, to the past. And so when you're in here at night, when we've got it lit for
evening light, candle light, I look into that mirror, and think about all the other faces that have been in that
mirror over the years. It's really a magical
moment, a powerful moment, to think about the
continuity of space and place as a way to connect to see each other. All right, so let me highlight
a couple of other elements that are crucial to understanding what Washington's trying
to project in this room. So we talked a little bit
about his notion of style, and the story of him and Cincinnatus, the agricultural efforts
that he's engaged in. He also has in here some great prints that represent the
American Revolutionary War, and particularly the sacrifice of the war. So he commissioned, well, he
purchases a number of prints based on John Trumbull's
extraordinary work. One on the Battle of Bunker Hill, and one on the death of
General Montgomery at Quebec. Now, I'll point out these over here. So the one on the bottom is
the Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the one above that is the
death of Richard Montgomery at the Battle of Quebec. Now, these images were done by Trumbull, and engraved in the late 1790s, and Washington has a number of them, and he places them right
across from each other in the New Room. I mean, he's a little obsessed with symmetry, George Washington. You'll see that as we
go through the house. He likes things to balance in that way. But here, he not only goes for balance, he goes for identical images
across from each other in this extraordinary room. And their stories of, what
he would've considered, the real heroes of the
American Revolution, the ones who sacrificed everything, their lives in this case. And General Warren's story, you know, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, is well known in Boston, and should be taught widely everywhere, but it's not very well known today. And, of course, General Montgomery, who dies at the Battle of Quebec, this is one very few Americans would be able to tell you about, but he's really an extraordinary leader of the early American effort, and this attempt by Congress
to conquer Canada, essentially, is a disaster almost from the start. They try to do it without
the right supplies, without winter clothes
in the middle of winter. Ultimately, they have a failed
effort to assault Quebec, and Montgomery dies, and, of course, famously, Benedict Arnold is wounded in that battle as well, and it really is an example of the chaos of the early years
of the American effort, but also the sacrifices that some of us now have long forgotten, these battles that we don't win, battles that go nowhere, and just lead to the death
of many people tragically. It's an important thing to
remember in times of crisis, and not everything goes
very smoothly at the start, and often there is tragic
mistakes that can be made. And Montgomery, of course, gets a mention in the Hamilton Musical, and
so perhaps some kids know a little bit more about it nowadays. But Washington cared very deeply about the memory of those that
were lost in the war, and he also has another
remembrance of that in this room. He has a wonderful print
behind the door over there, that I don't know if
we'll get a chance to see, but Joseph Wright of Derby
did a wonderful painting called The Dead Soldier, and this is a soldier
of a woman in mourning, of showing that her
son or husband has died in some sort of conflict, and it fit very much in the idea, of the sentimental idea, of
the late 18th and 19th century. Matt, do you wanna pop over there, and take a gander at it,
and see what we can see? It's hard to see now with the light fixture
in front of it there. But again, Washington
displayed that in this room. Again, connecting a story
about sacrifice in war that told the story about his own time, but also emphasizing the loss of lives, and the tragedy of war as well. So it's an important part of the story. Now when we think about
also important stories in the early period
that George Washington's showing off here in this
incredible art gallery, is the connection with the French. And so another John Trumbull
that he has right here is this painting of Trumbull
after Verplanks Point. I'm sorry, it's a paining of
Washington at Verplanks Point. This is actually a copy of the original which is in the collection at Winterthur. And Washington puts it across from, let's go ahead ad take a look at this, across from this extraordinary
print of Louis XVI, the great French King that supported the American independence
movement of the very early days, and this print was presented
to George Washington by the first Minister in 1791 to America, and has an extraordinary frame on it. The top of which is embellished with images of the fleur-de-lis, the symbol of the French
monarchy, Louis XVI. The bottom is embellished with the coat of arms of George
Washington, and the letters GW. So it's a frame made for
this extraordinary gift from the French to George Washington as president of the United States, and he has it directly across from this wonderful image of himself
at Verplanck's Point. In fact, at Verplanck's Point,
he would've been reviewing the French Army at that time. So it really is an
interesting connection there. So there's one other thing I wanna mention before we open up to questions, which I know you may have some, and I'll get to this harpsichord
behind me in time as well, but the other great story that Washington's talking about here is the promise of the future of America. He has an extraordinary
collection of landscapes. He's sort of ahead of his
time in collecting landscapes, but he's clearly doing it, I think, to emphasize a particular story about the future of the United States, about the power and the beauty of the West as he understands it, and the interior. And so you have across from
the mantel on either side these Winstanley paintings, landscapes, that he had ordered in the 1790s to hang in the green room in the Presidential Executive
Mansion in Philadelphia, and one represents the
Hudson in the morning, and one represents the
Hudson River in the evening. He has another Winstanley behind us, which is Genesee Falls
in Upstate New York, which is a powerful thing. And then we have a gap in the wall where we know he had another
Winstanley landscape. He ordered four, we only know of three, which would've likely been there. But then on the other side of the room, he's not done with landscape images, and these are particularly
powerful for him. These are images of the Potomac River. So through that window you
can see the beautiful Potomac, and you can see Maryland beyond it. But then these paintings above the door, and above the two battle scenes, are paintings by George Beck that George Washington
purchased in the late 1790s, which show the cut of the Potomac River as it goes through the cut, and the falls of the
Potomac River as well. So you can see, again, a
view of the West from here. Now George Washington, as we know, was also involved in the
improvement of the Potomac River. He created a company, actually, the first company incorporated
in multiple states in the 1780s of which
he was the president of. I bet you didn't know that. When was he first called
President Washington? It was because he was the
president of a company created in 1785, the
Potomac Navigation Company. And so I have no doubt
that George Washington spent many, many hours in this room talking about the promise of the Potomac. We all know, of course,
that he seated the capital of the United States there. The seat of government in the 1790s was placed on the Potomac River. He believed that if the
Potomac could be improved, meaning if they could get rid
of all the old, dead trees, and pull out a bunch of rocks, and create some canals around the falls, he thought that it would be the
great highway into the West, 'cause if you'll remember, everybody moving into the Ohio Valley, all those rivers flow West. They flow to the Mississippi. And so how do you make sure
that people moving West are still connected to
the East in their markets, and in their relationships? And he thought the
Potomac River was really a great example of that. So I see we have some questions cued up. Let's go ahead and see what we got. - [Matt] So Doug, Scott asked, "Are the colors of the walls the same during George Washington's time?" - Yeah, so the question was about the colors in the walls in here. It's a great question. And when Mount Vernon
restores anything here we use the best research we can do, scientific, curatorial, architectural, to make sure we can
understand what was here at the time he lived,
particularly in 1799. And so in this case, we have the ability to do paint testing, to test the paint, and to test wallpaper. Sometimes we have an
archive with wallpaper that we've found, for instance,
underneath chair rails, behind the moldings of different doorways, but also, there's paint
that layers on over time, and we can analyze which layers
would've been here in 1799, and then reproduce that color
with the best of our ability. And yeah, so the best
of our latest research, this is what we understand the room would've looked like in 1799. The colors are the same. All the objects are here in the places that we think they would've been. We have a great inventory of the space. So after Washington dies, of course, they do a probate of the room, and they also do a probate of the room after Martha Washington
dies only two years later. So you get a real sense of what was in the room at that time. Sometimes those probates are
not as detailed as you'd like, but in this case, in this room, we have a very, very strong sense that we know what was in here. There was more in here than we have. It was really a packed
space, and a beautiful space, and again, probably one of the most elegant rooms in Virginia at the time the Washington's passed away. So we think the color
is exactly how it was, and we have made changes over time, and we've done a paint
analysis in the 1980s. The technology's much better now. We can get more layers and
more refinement of the period, and we also have much better
access to the archives of not only what the Mount
Vernon Ladies Association has done to this place since 1860, but also what George and Martha
Washington did to the place, because a lot of those
papers have been digitized, and so you can search
them much more readily. So we really are at the
cutting edge of preservation as a way to tell stories that help us understand the past. - [Matt] So Doug, Julie wants to know, "Can you purchase the paint colors?" - Julie asked a question, whether you could
purchase the paint colors. Yes, you can. We do have a Mount Vernon line of paint, which you can find
online through our shops, and I encourage you all to go do that, and deck out your own new room. You could even call it the New Room after you re-paint it,
and it would be that, at least until you do another one, and then you might have to
come up with another name. But this was the newest
room Washington had. - [Matt] So Doug, Melissa wants to know, "Does the fireplace still work?" - Melissa wants to know, "Does
the fireplace still work?" No, the fireplace does not still work. In fact, George Washington
put in a coal grate to heat this room. Coal could be gotten fairly cheaply, although, more expensive than wood, but it could really help heat
a very large space like this because it burns at a
much higher temperature. Now, we installed, in the 1990s a... Well, actually long before that, we installed some heating in the mansion back in the 19th century, which had used some of the fireplaces so that they wouldn't be burning anymore, but had delivered some heat through them. And now, we basically
have a forced air system, an HVAC system that
was put in in the 1990s that helps keep the room at
an appropriate temperature. You know, we usually
have millions of people coming through the mansion. We couldn't do this conversation right now if it weren't for this
extraordinary time we're in, 'cause right now, this
room would be filled with tens of thousands of school kids streaming through for the next few weeks. And as I said in the last
conversation we had together, it's really bittersweet for us, because it is bitter not to be able to have the estate open in that way. But no, they don't still burn. Questions, Matt? - [Matt] Yeah, Scarlet wants to know, "My friends and I wanna know if we can order from
the Mount Vernon store to show our support
during the quarantine?" - Okay, Scarlet asked a great question, "If you can order from
the Mount Vernon store to give our support?" Absolutely, I encourage you to order for yourselves and all your friends. We are in dramatic financial
challenge in this moment. We get a lot of our revenue through attendance to Mount Vernon, and so when we're closed we
have very little coming in. So any help you can give to the stores, or just a donation, would be helpful. Matt, what do you got? - [Matt] Silverio wants to know, "Are the wall finishes in plaster?" - Yeah, so that question
was about the wall finishes, "Are they in plaster?" Yes, they're plaster with
wallpaper on top of it. So, you know, if you could
look behind these walls, you'd see the lays that
would hang on to the plaster, and we didn't have to do
much restoration of plaster, although, in some places in this room, we did have that challenge. One of the great things about
the way we restore rooms is we document everything. And so there are elements of
this room where we can say, "Well that board was
replaced in the 1950s", and we can say, "Oh, no, that
board is from the 1780s", and we have an incredible
document of this room now because we did do a full
architectural review of it before we started
putting up new wallpaper, and that sort of thing. You strip it down to understand it, and then you replace everything. And a good question about
like when we are replacing, we always try to use
the original materials done with the original
techniques as much as possible. So again, creating that authentic sense of what it was actually like when the Washington's were here. - [Matt] Great, Doug. And Vicky wants to know, "When Washington ordered
the Hudson paintings, did he give specifics
for each of the four, or did the artist have license to paint whatever they wanted?" - Good question. When Washington ordered the landscapes, now, in the case of Winstanley,
it's not clear to me, our curators may know, that Washington commissioned
specific things. I don't think he did. I think Winstanley was
selling particular views, and Washington was very
much enamored by landscapes. Well, he already had one in his house. And also, I think that the
idea that this was New York, this was the West, this was America that he could show off in
the Presidential Mansion was what was appealing to him, as much as the aesthetic beauty of the painting themselves, so. And in the case of the Potomac, these George Beck paintings were ones that Beck had painted and Washington was eager to get his hands on. - [Matt] Great, Dog, Scott wants to know, "How do you know where the
paintings were situated when George Washington lived there?" - Oh, good question. "How do we know where the
paintings were situated?" Well, I think the deep, dark secret is that we don't know where
everything was situated here. We have a really strong sense from the inventory what was in here, and there's certain things that make sense in certain places. I do know that we know that this moonlit shot over the mantel's, a painting was above the
mantel piece in a description. And so from there, you can
start putting the room together in ways that make sense. I mean, the large mirrors are absolutely where they would've been. But the work we do, we try
to find ever representation. One of the great things
about George Washington is that he had so many
visitors who talked about their experience at Mount Vernon. So we have all these
traveler's accounts as well that help us place when certain things were in different rooms, and where they might have been as well. So some of it is guess work, but we would say, "It is
a very educated guess". - [Matt] Great, Doug, Audrey,
who's seven, from Fairfax, is wondering, "If any
kids lived in the mansion, and if so, what are their names?" - Oh, Audrey asked, "If
there are any children in the mansion, and if so,
what were their names?" Well, there's two periods of time where there's children
in the mansion, Audrey. First when Martha Washington
marries George Washington. She has children from her previous husband who had passed away. So they came to live when
they were just very young at age one and age three, and this was Martha Custis and George, I'm sorry, Jack Custis,
known as Jacky and Patsy, is what they were called. Patsy sadly died when she
was young at 18-years-old. Jack died when he was 28-years-old, but he got married and
had children of his own, and two of those grew
up here at Mount Vernon. One is George Washington Parke Custis, and another one is Nelly Custis, which is a perfect transition
for me to talk about Nelly Custis' harpsichord. So Nelly Custis comes to
live with George Washington when she's a teenager in the 1780s, and she is really renowned
for her accomplishments. She's known to be able to
draw, as well as to dance, and she's also really efficient at music. She has a beautiful voice, and she plays the piano
and the harpsichord. And so George Washington purchases a number of instruments for her, and lessons for her over the years, and none is more spectacular
than this representation of the harpsichord that he
purchased for her in 1792. Matt, do you wanna come
a little closer here? So let me come over on the side here. That better?
- Mm-hmm. - So this the Longman & Broderip
London made harpsichord, made in the 1790s at a crucial moment in the history of keyboard instruments, 'cause what's happening
in the 18th century is that the pianoforte is starting to replace the harpsichord. The pianoforte has much
more expressive abilities. You know, you can hammer away
at it, and get very loud. You can also get very, very quiet with it. It is emotional. It has an emotional power
that we're gonna see, obviously, reach its heights in virtuosity in the 19th century through the great pianists
of the 19th century, and it's driving out the
poor old harpsichord. Harpsichords are quieter instruments. They're less flexible instruments, although they had dominated parlor music for gentile families for
much of the 18th century. Now, this one is really spectacular, because it's trying to
compete with a pianoforte. So it has some spectacular things that most harpsichords don't have. In fact, this is one of the only ones in the world that could do this. So when I say this is a replica, I mean we have the original harpsichord that was given to Nelly
buy George Washington, and it's here in our collection. We had an absolute replica made by hand, using the same materials, by an incredible guy named John Watson down in Colonial Williamsburg, who worked on it for multiple years, and studied it for multiple
years, and it is playable, and it can do all the extraordinary things that Nelly's harpsichord did, which includes multiple
stops that you can pull on, you turn it like an organ stocp, that allow you to play at once only one... A lute stop, for instance, where you can just play it,
and it sounds like a guitar, or you can play all the strings at once so it sounds like a
mini orchestra in a box. It also has a really incredible thing called the Venetian swell
on it, which allows you, it's sort of like Venetian
blinds that open and close, which allows you to
crescendo and decrescendo, or at least be loud and then be quiet in a way that you can with a piano. So it's really an
extraordinary instrument, because it's in the last
days of harpsichords, but it's trying technologically
to be able to deliver the sort of motion and
flexibility that people would see. Maybe you can hear it. (notes strumming on harpsichord) Did that come through? Listen to a little bit of the opening of "Silent Night" there for you. But I have something against playing Christmas songs in a non-Christmas era, so I won't continue my one
little ditty there that I know. Do we have any questions, Matt? - [Matt] "How long did it take to restore Mount Vernon?", from Emily. - The question is, "How long did it take to restore Mount Vernon?" There's really two
answers to that question. We are still restoring Mount Vernon. Certainly, the Mansion House itself is in regular need of restoration. All preservation work is ongoing, and institutions like us,
we are forever institutions. We are built for for forever. Our goal is to make sure that this mansion lasts for forever, so that your children, and your children's children's children could come and experience the same thing that we've seen on the
world of George Washington. Now, to get more correct, perhaps, with what the tenor of the question was, when the Mount Vernon Ladies Association first acquired the Mansion House, and the outlying buildings in 1858, and then opened it to the public in 1860, that first season was one
of Civil War in the country. It was a time of great challenge. So there was very little
that could be done. You know, it was basically
about just making sure we didn't lose anything that we had. So there was a big project
to reconstruct the piazza, which we'll talk about at some other time. But the initial restoration
of the mansion, I'd say, took really a generation
to make sure it was secure, and even then, there was ongoing work that needed to be done. Any questions? Uhhh.
- Yep. Fredik wants to know, "Is there anything
Masonic-related in this room?" He's a Mason. - Ah, Frederick, the Mason, asked, "Is there anything Masonic and Masonic-related in this room?" That's a very good question,
and the answer is probably. I'm not sure. I don't think there's anything
that calls out in my mind that we see as a Masonic
symbol or representation, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the images had some elements to them that have Masonic conintations. George Washington, of
course, became a Mason at the age 19 at the Fredericksburg Lodge, and that lodge is still active. They still lay a wreath here
at George Washington's tomb every year on his death
and at his birthday. The Masons were a crucial part
of the saving of Mount Vernon back when the Lady's Association were attempting to raise
money to purchase the mansion. A lot of Masonic groups
rolled up George Washington as a great part of their
fraternity, as a brother. You know, have been great supporters of the institution over time. You do have aspects in our collection that are connected with George Washington as a Mason as well, and you
can see all those online. There's a great encyclopedia article about George Washington and Masonry, and there's a great book coming out by a scholar named Mark
Tabbert, who was at the George Washington Masonic
Memorial Library in Alexandria, who could tell you a lot more about George Washington and the Mason. - [Matt] So Captain Cardone wants to know, "Do you plan on doing additional tours while the mansion is closed?" - Well, we're doing tours every
day at noon that are live. I won't be doing them all, thankfully for you, Captain Cardone, but we are planning to do other rooms in the
mansion as we go through. How are we on time here, Matt? We got time to move into - We do.
- the Little Parlor? - [Matt] Mm-hmm. - All right, so now we're
gonna, the Front Parlor, sorry. Let me walk into the Front Parlor here. Curators watching at home will note that I do not have shoes on my feet, and so I will not track
any debris into this room. Yeah. So now we've just gone back in time. Well, partly gone back in time, because this does look like
it would've looked in 1799, this Front Parlor when
George Washington died. But it also is a room that
was the most elegant room George Washington had in the house before he built the New Room. And, in fact, you can
tell the elegance of it from a number of items here. The paneling on the walls. This is wood paneling, which is much more high
style than wallpaper. So this room would've
never been wallpapered because of the beautiful
wood paneling in here. And this room would've
been an elegant room when George Washington acquired it. Now, clearly, he had
to do some work on it, because one of the great things as we've done the architectural
work in this room, is we had to take off some of
these original panels here, which were warped from years and years. We rehydrated them to
flatten them out again to reinstall them, but by taking them off, we got to see what was behind the room. And if you remember from last time, I talked about how George
Washington inherited this home after he had rented it. His brother, Lawrence, had lived here, and Lawrence died sadly in the 1750s, and then the house went
to Lawrence's widow, and ultimately would've
went to his daughter, but his daughter and his widow both died, and George Washington
then inherited the house. Behind the wood paneling,
we found evidence of plaster work to look like paneling, which is really quite extraordinary. A plaster work in this
room to look like paneling would, again, been a
very high style finish, and that would've been during
Lawrence's time most likely. And so it's a room that
would've been an important entertaining room in the early period of the Washington's time here. It also is what we kind of think of as the family parlor here, partly because of all
the images in this room. The paintings in this room, as opposed to the
paintings in the New Room, these are family paintings. So we have, of course, George Washington and Martha Washington. These are fascinating themselves. They're both replicas of the originals, which are owned by Washington
and Lee University. The Martha Washington painting
was done by John Wollaston, who was an itinerary painter
in North America at the time. And at the time, I mean,
we really know her here when she was painted as
Martha Dandridge Custis. She was painted with her
husband, Daniel Parke Custis, who would've been hanging next to her, but, of course, he dies, and so she ultimately commissions a painting of George Washington. And so Martha is here. She would've been about 26. George Washington is painted in 1772, so he would've been 40-years-old, but he's depicted in his uniform that he wore during the
French and Indian War, which is really astonishing, because it's sort of a depiction of what he would've looked like when he met Martha
Washington, in an essence. He was wearing his French
and Indian War uniform, and so maybe that's what she wanted, maybe it's what George Washington wanted. We don't really know why
Charles Willson Peale, who painted this painting, this extraordinary earliest
image of George Washington, why he's wearing his
provincial uniform of the time. But it really is a spectacular
painting in its own right, which I'll talk about more of people life. But in mentioning how
this is a family parlor, you also see images, the
likenesses of the family here. So you see Nelly Custis in the middle over here on this wall. You see George Washington by Sharples. Martha Washington by Sharples. You have Georges Washington La Fayette. The Marquis de Lafayette's son lived here at Mount Vernon in the 1790s
during the French Revolution. And then George Washington
Parke Custis as well. So this is kind of like
the family of the 1790s that are living at Mount Vernon. And this empty space
here we very much believe would've been a portrait of
the Marquis de Lafayette, and his wife, and their multiple children, which is now lost. It's thought lost, at least. So if you find it out there, let us know. But it was listed in the inventory in 1799 as damaged already. So a damaged painting in
the late 18th century, it's very hard for that to survive. And then we have some other likenesses in this corner as well. Fanny Bassett, who is a
niece of Martha Washington. You also have Jack
Custis and Martha Custis, Martha Washington's
children aged three and one. Would've been about the ages they were when they came to Mount Vernon, although this was painted by Wollaston at the same time Martha's
portrait was painted while they were still
in the Custis family. And then we have a painting
of a guy named Thomas Law, who was married to another of Martha Washington's granddaughters, Eliza Parke Custis Law, who was really quite
an interesting figure. She was much younger than Law. Law was an Englishman. He was in India before
he came to North America. He always had grand plans and big schemes. He was a real estate developer. He was a bit of a cad. Washington warned Martha's granddaughter not to rush into marriage. The marriage ultimately ended
in divorce and separation. Although, Eliza Parke Custis Law remained a major figure in D.C. society well into the 19th century. An interesting story in its own right. So we see family portraits in here. This would've been a place where the Washington's would've had tea and coffee with their close friends, obviously, delivered by enslaved people who worked in the mansion here. The enslaved families
who worked on the estate had a very different life
than the enslaved people that worked in the mansion itself. The butlers, and the house
mistresses, and the maids who did the work to maintain this house, and all the elegance around
it, is a crucial part. But I think the pièce de
résistance in this room is this extraordinary suite of furniture, and this suite of furniture
has a great story to it. It's a reconstructed suite, based on all the best
evidence that we know, was originally owned
by the Fairfax family, George and Martha
Washington's good friends who lived at their great estate, Belvoir, where the current Army
base Fort Belvoir is, just down the river here
from George Washington, his near neighbor on this river. George William Fairfax was a good friend of George Washington. He was married to Sally Fairfax, who many people might've heard of, who some people George
Washington was infatuated with, perhaps more, and they were great friends of George and Martha Washington, and this suite was given
to the Washington's when the Fairfax's went
back to London in the 1770s. Now, what's remarkable about it, is we were able to acquire a document, in fact, the first thing we purchased when we opened the Presidential Library for George Washington in 2013 was a ledger book that was unknown, that turned out to be the
George Washington, I'm sorry, the George William Fairfax ledger book, which also had a lot his
father, William Fairfax's, business dealings in it. But what it had in it was a great receipt of goods received from England, which included a description of this suite of furniture, how it looked. It had the color Saxon blue damask. This beautiful Saxon blue damask cloth, which we had reproduced
using 18th century techniques of what Saxon blue would've looked like, and you can see it's
really quite extraordinary. And for many years, this room
was called the Blue Room, and thought of as the Blue Room, because George Washington
describes it that way, and it would've been
painted blue everywhere, but when we did our paint analysis, I actually understood that
it wasn't painted blue, and it makes complete sense with this suite of furniture in here being the representation of the blue, because the window treatments as well are that extraordinary damask. But one other thing I wanna mention, Matt, before we take some questions perhaps, Washington orders some of
these carvings in the 1750s, George Washington, when he's trying to decorate this room with the highest style. And again, we see here more
evidence of the Rococo, the carvings here with the
leaves, and the elegant patterns. So you can imagine, those
candle stands from the New Room were likely in this space. Matching very much with
this mantel surround, this beautiful carving. George Washington ordered a
coat of arms to be carved, which is typical of English gentlemen who want to show off
their great descendants. I mean, when you live in
an aristocratic society where the font of all honor is the king, what better way to show off
what a special person you are than to show that you are
connected to great families. And, in fact, there's a
crown at the top of this with the griffin on top of that, which is a claim that there's some kind of monarchical connection in Washington's ancestry, which, in fact, he wasn't legitimately allowed to display. But, you know, these things were sort of difficult to document,
and difficult to know, and when he asked for a coat of arms of the Washington's to be carved,
he got what they sent him. He didn't describe how it should look, 'cause he didn't know how it should look, and so he gets what he gets. But it represents, again,
shows off this room, and shows off his concern over his own status in his time. It also has a beautiful landscape in it, after the Claude Lorrain, from the 1750s. So Washington, early
on, enjoyed landscapes. Any questions? Matt wants to move out of here. - [Matt] So we have a question from Paul, "Why are the two, there are two doors between the front parlor
and the New Room?" - "Why are there two doors between the front parlor
and the New Room?" Oh, well, there's two
doors because originally this wasn't part of the same house, right? So this space here was built later, so there was already a
door and passageway here, but also, it's a way to control heat, and to control sound in this space. - [Matt] And Nick wants to know, "Were all the rooms decorated
by George Washington, or did Martha Washington
decorate some rooms?" - The question's about
whether Martha Washington decorated some of the
rooms, and George Washington decorated some of them. I think this is gonna surprise people when I say, "I believe
the majority of the rooms are really decorated
by George Washington". Although, many of them, you know, with more care than others, I think. Now one great exception to
that may be the bedroom itself, George and Martha Washington's bedroom, which George Washington always referred to as "Mrs. Washington's Room". So to some extent, you get the sense that she was involved in the
look and feel of that room. But honestly, we don't
know exactly the role that Martha and George played
in their give and take. It could've been designed
together by them both. It's hard to know, because
they don't document their private conversations, obviously, and their correspondence
was destroyed at some point, or at least is missing. It's likely that Martha Washington
burned the correspondence that she had with George Washington. So, you know, they're debating
over swatches and colors is something we just can't get at. We do know that George
Washington, however, was very much engaged in the design and the interior feel of this house. - [Matt] "And is the picture from George of the French and Indian
War the original?" - Right, so the great question. So the Charles Willson Peale painting of George Washington from 1772, the question is, "Is it original?". No, it's not original. It is a digital copy of the original, which we just had here on loan from Washington and Lee University. We were able to do a
very close study of it. It now is off somewhere else. We hope very much it'll come back here before going back to
Washington Lee ultimately. It did hang in that spot. We know it hung in that spot because of the way it was
described as hanging there, and there's windows on the other side, and the two of them would've
hung next to each other. It's really the only spot for it. It is an extraordinary painting because it represents
Washington before he's famous, in the sense that he is now,
by Charles Willson Peale, and it shows him in his uniform. As I mentioned, he has a little
piece of paper in his pocket that says "Order of March" on it. Of course, one of the
things he was most proud of was his participation in
the French and Indian's successful capture of Fort Duquesne, in which he was charge
of the Virginia Regiment, and had some claim towards
helping to design the march, and the way the disposition of the troops assaulted that space, perhaps not as much as he
would've liked to believe he had. But nevertheless, it's clearly a story, and he's telling about himself. He also has on a sash, an officer's sash, which could very well
be the Braddock Sash, the sash worn by General Braddock when he died at the field
at Braddock's defeat, which was a very bittersweet
moment for George Washington, because on the one hand,
Braddock gives him this sash, and Braddock praised the
work of the Virginians in that remarkable defeat, but, of course, it was
one of the greatest losses of a British Army in world history, and George Washington was present at it. It was really a remarkable
thing in his age. - [Matt] So Dallas
Washington wants to know, "Is the furniture in the room original?" - Dallas Washington asked about, "Is the furniture in the room original?" In this case, no, the suite of furniture in the Front Parlor is a recreation of what we know is there. That furniture did not survive. But as I said, we have
a very good description of the sofa, and suite of chairs, and the Saxon blue damask cloth, and these were recreated
by an extraordinary artisan in Colonial Williamsburg, again,
with painstakingly methods, 18th century methods. The damask was stained in
the 18th century manor. So unfortunately, furniture
doesn't often survive, a whole suite of furniture in particular. We do think it's one of the
earliest documented sofas in Virginia at the time. So it's an interesting story to tell. - [Matt] And Femi wants to know, from Bolling Air Force Base, "I don't remember seeing
the blue furniture". "Are they new?" - Ah, so the question
about the blue furniture was whether it's new or not. Yes, so we only revealed our
work in this room last year, which included the new furniture,
included the new paint, included getting those
boards back in shape. The plaster work, I did
mention, on the ceiling was also done at the same time that the plaster work in
the New Room was done, by the same artisans, and we did learn that most of that was still
the original plaster as well. So, again, when we redo a room, we strip it down and look
at it architecturally. We look at it through curatorial efforts to understand what was in the room. We look at it through George
Washington's own manuscripts, and also from the archives
of the Lady's Association, so all that research goes into it. An incredible team goes into doing that. And, of course, we raise the
money to do all this work. Mount Vernon is completely
private and independent. We don't get any dollars from taxpayers, unless it's given voluntarily
as a charitable gift, or through our shops and on
operations of the estate. So, as I mentioned earlier,
as you could imagine, being closed right now is
a real challenge for us to continue our preservation work here, but I'm delighted that we can share digitally and online to all of those, and the rest of us are
trapped at home with children, all the extraordinary
things we're doing here. - [Matt[ So Doug, Alan Wants To Know, "How about the carpet, is
that the same design as well?" - The carpet is an attempt to represent what we believe would've
been in that room, a wilted carpet that covered
the length of the floor. Let's take a gander at it here. We know this was a carpeted space. It's interesting, because
when you come to Mount Vernon, so this is a representation
of an 18th century carpet that we know was
in Virginia at the time, and I think that there's, you know, a strong sense that it would've
been in some of this nature, but we don't really know. The interesting thing that
always has frustrated me about Mount Vernon's interiors is the lack of carpets, actually. I'm a big fan of Turkey rugs, as they would call it in the 18th century, oriental carpets, oriental
rugs, wilted carpets, all kinds of carpets. You know, Axminster
carpets, let's get 'em. But the sad fact, is we don't
have a lot of documentation of George Washington having a lot of floor coverings like that. We know he had, so there's, over here, you see evidence of this material covering the floor. We have evidence of that
from an architectural review, which is kind of like a straw matting that helps protect the floor, and keep it from getting dirty. But we don't have evidence
of carpet tacks in this room, and there are some other
places where we do have rugs, but not as many as I would like. What else? - [Matt] Lori wants to know, "I assume that the earlier life of the restoring of Mount Vernon, paint chips were analyzed". "Were some of the early
paint color decisions made from some other historical accuracy?" - Yeah, good question. So yeah, so since the 1980s
we've been analyzing paint chips to try to understand what was done here, and as I mentioned,
we've gotten much better as the science has
gotten better, obviously, and we can get more
refined windows of time that we could designate
as the Washington time. And before that, when
the Lady's Association first took over the mansion
in the, I'm sorry, in 1860, they basically asked around, you know, "What did this look like?", from people who knew the Washington home, either in the Washington time period, or mostly, right after that time period, to try to understand, what
did this room look like? What did that room look like? And they were a number
of folks who were helpful in helping the Board, the Mount
Vernon Lady's Association, understand what it use to look like. And then, also, there was a period of time where the Lady's Association,
as they're, you know, they're scrambling to
get every dollar they can to make sure this whole incredible wooden structure
doesn't disappear, they furnished the interiors of the rooms basically based on what, you know, what kind of old antique
items they could find that they thought were
appropriate for the period, and so each Vice Regent
would get a particular room. So the Vice Regent from, you know, New York would have a room, and the Vice Regent from
Virginia would have a room, and they would decorate it with antiques, or objects of interest that
were owned by the Washington's without any real sense as to
how the room was actually used. I mean, there was some of that,
but it was really eclectic. It was really a mismatch of items, some of which were really appropriate, some of which really weren't. So for instance, we know
that George Washington didn't have any Boston 18th century chairs in Mount Vernon, and yet some
of the ladies, of course, had some of these antique chairs that might've been made in Boston, and put them in the mansion. Now, we don't have any of
that stuff on display anymore, and have been going
through our collections really to de-accession items
that aren't appropriate for the interpretation of the Washington's here on the estate. But it's really a fascinating thing, because the Lady's
Association had to come up with the whole idea of
historic preservation. What are you doing when
you're preserving a space? What should you show in a house museum? Are you trying to represent
a particular moment in time? Are you trying to tell a story about the people that lived here, and how are you gonna do that? Are you trying to just think
about, you know, bygone eras? And, of course, over
the last hundred years, we've gotten much more
sophisticated about, you know, particular antiques,
and where they were made, and when they might've been acquired, and what was appropriate. And so some stuff, you
know, that the early periods of the Lady's Association
thought were appropriate were actually made in the 19th century, long after the Washington's were dead, but, you know, old stuff looks old, and that sometimes is the case, that, you know, you have an
old chair that's been outside, or in an attic, you know,
it could be 30-years-old, and look like it's 200-years-old. So that sophistication has grown as we've also thought
about, what is our goal in what we do in preservation here? One of the remarkable
things I think you'll see when you go through historic
homes and visit them, is ask yourself a question, "What is the story that this
home is trying to tell?" "How are they interpreting
this particular space?" "Are they just giving us items that give us a flavor of the time?" "Are these the actual items?" "What do we know about
when they were acquired, and when they were gotten rid of?" It really is... There are many, many
different ways to do it, and I've seen some incredible examples of smaller historic homes who don't have any of the original objects, but still can tell a great story about life in an earlier time. - [Matt] So Doug, just
time for one more question. - One more question. Make it a good one. [Matt] Louis wants to know, "How long did it take the
New Room to be created?" - Well, Louis asked a question about, "How long did it take the
New Room to be created?" Much longer than George Washington wanted, because the American
Revolution got in the way. They started the work in the 1770s. You know, he finished, I think,
plastering in the mid-1780s. Had to redo the floor at
one point in the 1780s. You know, it really wouldn't have been a fully functional, beautiful
room until the late 1780s. So you're talking about a
room that took 15 years or so to get to the point where
it was probably in a state where he could be happy about it, and then he immediately
goes off to the presidency. You know, so the room,
again, takes on this flux. How it looks now would've been in 1799, so it was probably a work
in progress for Washington since he refurnished it and redecorated it after the presidency itself. So that's a great question. And as I close off today,
a couple of things. Send us some ideas about
what you wanna see, and what you wanna learn
about here at Mount Vernon. We'll be happy to try to do it. Spread the word about
our digital access here. Join, you know, follow us on Facebook, like us on Twitter,
and all the Instagrams, and all those things. Subscribe to our accounts. Help us spread the word, and become a member of
Mount Vernon right now, if you're not a member. We really need the support in this moment. You know, if you want to
support historic homes, I would advocate anywhere in your area, people are suffering
in the way that we are without visitation at the busiest time of the
year for us, is crucial. And so visit some of these
other sites online as well. Become members of other organizations if you have some income
security in this moment. Let's all pull together
to get through this, and we're gonna keep feeding out the educational materials
as much as we can. I look forward to hearing
from you again soon.
