Have you ever had to wait for a package? The excitement starts when you order the latest and greatest widget– the iPhone 4 for example. You rush home from school or work each day just hoping it’s on your doorstep. Finally, there is a brown box on the doorstep waiting just for you. You scoop the precious cargo off the steps and muscle your way through the front door, leaving a disaster in your wake. Keys, unopened mail, the newspaper, your coat, and briefcase or purse are scattered in a haphazard trail from the door to the living room while you scrounge for scissors to liberate your treasure from its cardboard dungeon. Retail therapy, indeed.
That urgent sense of waiting for an important package has captivated the Montpelier staff recently. By now, you have probably read all about our curatorial team’s efforts to carefully choose the most appropriate wallpaper for the Madisons’ Dining Room. Curators spent months consulting leading historic wallpaper experts and examining period samples that were known to exist during the time the Madisons would have originally purchased their wallpaper.
Courtesy Adelphi Paper Hangings, LLC
Once the curatorial team settled on a pattern, they placed the order with Adelphi Paper Hangings, which specializes in historic reproduction wallpaper. Fulfillment of the order was anything but simple. The technicians at Adelphi used carved wooden blocks to hand-stamp the paper layer by layer, to create the finished product you can see in our previous posts. Continue Reading…
Before we tell you, we want to provide some context for the choice. Remember that, as we mentioned in the last post on this topic, tastes in interior décor were different in the early 19th century. Period aesthetics showed a preference for strong colors, often combined in way foreign to twenty-first-century eyes. Patterns were popular, and there was little hesitation in using a different design for the carpet, wallpaper, curtains, and upholstery in the same room.
We know that when President Madison died in 1836 there were 36 engravings on the Dining Room walls. Today we would be loathe to hang so many prints on a highly patterned wallpaper. Not so in the early nineteenth century. Our team of experts believe that showing that aesthetic is important in creating the visual feel of this period room. They chose the circa 1815 paper with the green and buff pattern imitating draped fabric and originally made by the Philadelphia firm of Virchaux.
Another factor in the paper’s selection was its French-inspired design. The many ads for “Paper Hangings” in the National Intelligencer reveal that the local market followed the period predilection for fashionable French wallpaper patterns. Drapery papers frequently appear in the ads. Among the most popular papers available in the Washington region were those imported from France or produced by Philadelphia paper makers adapting French designs. A number of these paper makers were French émigrés like Henri Virchaux. Continue Reading…
We know the Madisons had mirrors in the Drawing Room. We just aren’t sure how many hung there. A few days ago Montpelier rounded up a team of experts to tackle this latest mystery in the Presidential Detective Story: Mark R. Wenger, architect and architectural historian, Gardiner Hallock, independent researcher and former Director of Architectural Research at Montpelier, and Lance Humphries, an independent researcher and expert on early 19th century American art collections.
The mirror trail begins with Montpelier visitor accounts. We know at least two mirrors hung in the Drawing Room. Our first witness, John H. B. Latrobe, described the room to a friend in an 1832 letter, saying “Its walls are covered with paintings, save where two immense mirrors, on the side at which you enter, conceal large portions.” 1 Latrobe’s description referred to the wall opposite of the triple hung windows. Continue Reading…
On the winding roads of Route 20 in Orange County, Virginia stands a century-old train depot, home to the local Montpelier Station, Virginia post office. On February 21, 2010, it became the home of James Madison’s Montpelier’s newest exhibit— The Montpelier Train Depot: In the Time of Segregation.
More than 200 people attended the February 21 opening. Emmy-award-winning journalist Juan Williams addressed the crowd. “This is a place of power…this is a place of life.…This is a place of teaching. This is a place of healing. This is a place of understanding. This is a place that can help us in terms of imagination…help understand what took place here… in terms of how we see each other across racial lines,” said Williams.
Workers laid the first tracks for the railroad line that runs past the Depot circa 1880. This was a time when trains were the fastest way to get anywhere, for both freight and passengers. In 1910, William duPont, owner of Montpelier, built the Depot to upgrade passenger and freight service. The Depot was constructed using plans from Southern Railway, with two waiting rooms – one for “white” passengers and one for “colored” passengers. Segregation was required by Virginia law. Continue Reading…
It might surprise you to know that shopping in bulk is not a new concept. Many of us probably remember our parents or grandparents talking about a time when they went to the market each day before dinner. People like the Madisons, who didn’t live near the market often ordered and stored large quantities of ingredients at their homes.
Montpelier recently acquired a variety of barrels that represent an assortment of what the Madisons might have kept on-hand. Like many of the objects in the mansion, there’s much more to the barrels than meets the eye.
Coopers at Colonial Williamsburg and Strawbery Banke custom made a total of eight barrels for Montpelier. Student Education Director Christian Cotz hit the road to pick up the custom orders in early December. Visitors can now see the barrels in the mansion cellars.
Barrels or casks are generic terms that describe ingredient containers during the Madisons’ time. They could have other names, however, depending on the ingredient and amount a given container held. Using these terms, here is what you can expect to see when you visit the cellars:
The Presidential Detective Story is well underway and we have already had some great finds. One of these is the painting Pan – Youths & Nymphs.1 The painting recently returned to Montpelier. Here is the back story on its journey home:
Gerrit Van Honthorst, Pan, Youths & Nymphs, ca. 1630
Our curatorial team first saw Pan – Youths & Nymphs listed in the anonymous document “Oil Paintings at Montpellier” (circa 1836-44). Next, the team found an 1846 newspaper article that describes the work hanging over a mantel in Dolley Madison’s Lafayette Square house in Washington, D.C. The article called it “a very old painting representing a group of maidens surprised by Pan while playing in a grove.”2
Then the trail went cold. We knew John Payne Todd (Dolley’s son) held a sale of her property nearly two years after her 1849 death. A newspaper account following the sale noted at least one of the “large works” remained unsold. Could Pan – Youths & Nymphs be one of these paintings? If so, where did it go?
As part of the Presidential Detective Story, Montpelier’s research team examines correspondence and other records from family members who inherited or purchased objects with a Madison provenance. Once such sale that we have been studying to better understand the dispersal of Madison objects is the 1852 sale of the contents of Toddsberthe, the home of John Payne Todd, Dolley’s son.
John Payne Todd only outlived his mother by two and a half years. He died in Washington in January 1852. In the last decade of his life, he began to construct a series of dwellings which he named Toddsberthe, on land near Montpelier. Our research indicates he hoped his mother would spend her final years with him at Toddsberthe. He spent extravagant amounts of money to construct this home, despite his heavy debt. Todd’s outlandish design included a ballroom, rotunda, and several other rooms that suggest grandiose intentions which were never fully carried out. Some of the buildings were unfinished and t at least one was damaged by fire when he died.
Following Todd’s death, Toddsberthe and its contents were sold to satisfy his many creditors. The November 1852 sale liquidated much of Montpelier’s furniture and artwork that Dolley did not take to Washington in 1844. Family members, including Dolley’s niece Annie Payne Causten, arranged to purchase some of Dolley’s belongings at the sale. Causten, was Dolley’s caretaker and companion during the former First Lady’s final years.
At the time of the sale, Annie lived in Washington. Shortly after Dolley Madison’s 1849 death, Annie had married Dr. James H. Causten, Jr., a prominent Washington physician. Surviving letters suggest that her health declined. She died only a few days before Toddsberthe’s sale. Shortly before the sale, she and her husband drafted a memorandum to her father-in-law, James Causten, Sr., to suggest objects to purchase at Toddsberthe sale. Continue Reading…
Last week we installed a pair of card tables in the Drawing Room (M108) that have excellent Montpelier provenance. Card playing, backgammon, and other games were popular pastimes during the late 18th and early 19th century. Several visitors recalled seeing games being played during their visit with the Madisons. During his 1816 visit, Baron de Montelzun mentioned games of chess being played at Montpelier.1 In an exchange of letters between Dolley Madison and her sister Anna Payne Cutts in the spring of 1804, they mention playing Loo, a card game similar to the modern game of Hearts.
The tables were purchased at an undated Montpelier sale by a local family who lived at a neighboring plantation. In the mid 20th century, the tables were separated when one was sold. Both tables maintained their Madison provenance and were brought together for display here at Montpelier after it was confirmed that they were a matching pair. As part of our research, wood sampling was conducted on the tables, indicating they were made in New England based on the types of wood used. It is possible that these tables were shipped to Virginia or were acquired by the Madisons in Philadelphia, a port city with a thriving furniture trade. One of the tables was graciously donated to Montpelier by Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Thompson, and the other is currently on loan to us. We are thrilled to be able to display them together in situ.
New Document in the Grills Gallery
There is a new document now on display in the Grills Gallery in the Visitors Center here at Montpelier. It is an undated memorandum from Dolley Madison to a Mr. Zantzinger; a shopping list of household and personal items for him to purchase on her behalf. The many interesting items include “two [large] Looking-Glasses”, “100 yds best carpeting,” various types of clothing, and “one dozen fanciful but cheap snuff boxes.”
This is not the only time the Madisons made purchases through an agent or friend. In the 1780s, James Madison sent requests for books to his friend Thomas Jefferson, who was in Paris. Shortly after his 1794 marriage, Madison asked his friend James Monroe, then Minister to France, to acquire household goods for him, among which were French carpets and yards of red and green silk intended for curtains for two rooms. Later in their married lives Dolley begins to order goods on her own, not just through her husband. The Zantzinger order is an example of this as is a quite similar order Dolley commissioned in 1810 from merchant and US Commercial Agent in Bordeaux William Lee.2
The Zantzinger memorandum gives us an idea of Dolley’s tastes, and her budget. She wants nice looking glasses and good carpet, but only as fine as can be purchased for $100 each. This was not a spending spree; Dolley was instead a savvy shopper who set a limit on the lengths to which she, or her agent, should go to acquire fashionable decorations for the house. Although she does not set an upper limit for the “print of the bust of N. Bonaparte” listed, she does quote Zantzinger the price that the print was selling for “some months since;” she did at least have an estimate for how much it should cost.
Who was Mr. Zantzinger? His identity is far from apparent in the memorandum, and he was not a regular correspondent with Dolley. There are a few possibilities, two of which seem most promising:
The first is the Philadelphia merchant firm of Kepple and Zantzinger. Although the memorandum does not appear to date from the period when the Madisons were living in Philadelphia, they may have kept in touch with useful connections in that city. The firm of Kepple and Zantzinger would have had at least one Mr. Zantzinger in it.
The second possibility is one William P. Zantzinger, supercargo, mentioned in a 1819 Supreme Court case. A supercargo is “An officer on a merchant ship who has charge of the cargo and its sale and purchase” ([italic]American Heritage Dictionary), so this Zantzinger would have been in a position to make purchases for the Madisons.
Of course, it is possible that William P. Zantzinger was somehow related to the Zantzingers of the merchant firm in Philadelphia; in a letter to a friend written in Tripoli, Dolley Madison’s brother mentions having met “Mr. Zantzinger Supercargo of a vessel from Philadelphia” while in Italy.[note: John Coles Payne to Boyd, May 25, 1807, Private Collection] Merchant firms in the late 18th and early 19th centuries sometimes included extended families – fathers, sons, cousins, nephews – so a supercargo from Philadelphia could be related to a Philadelphia firm.
The memorandum helps us to better understand Dolley Madison’s taste, the limits of her pocketbook and her desire to acquire certain goods in France. But, it also raises further questions about the Madisons’ patterns of consumption, who they used as agents for long-distance shopping and how they made those connections.
We hope that you can come and see this document and other Madison items in our Grills Gallery.
1 Moffatt, L. G. and J. M. Carriere “A Frenchman Visits Norfolk, Fredericksburg and Orange County, 1816.” Virginia Historical Magazine, July 1945 2 Mary Lee Mann, A Yankee Jeffersonian: Selections from the Diary and Letters of William Lee of Massachusetts Written from 1796 to 1840, Cambridge, MA, 1958, p. 133.
Recently we were fortunate to have four furniture experts from The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation come on-site to consult with us on furnishings at Montpelier, both from our permanent collection and items on loan. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation staff who came were Ron Hurst, vice president for collections and museums; Tara Gleason Chicirda, curator of furniture; Christopher Swan, conservator of furniture; and Albert Skutans, conservator of furniture.
Staff from The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and the Montpelier Foundation discussing and taking notes
Chris Swan examining one end of a daybed.
Their expertise helped to further confirm much of the research that we have already done on several of our pieces, and led us as well to many new avenues of research. They identified the types of woods used in the construction of many objects, and hypothesized about their likely dates and regions of origin. This information has allowed us to do even more pointed research, and has already helped us begin to decide which pieces are most suitable to represent the furnishings at Montpelier during James and Dolley Madisons’ residence.
Albert Skutans examines the construction of a drawer.
Some of the details that Ron, Tara, Chris, and Albert looked for in determining the origin of pieces such as beds and tables included the types of joints holding pieces of wood together, the patterns of detailing such as turnings and inlay, and nearly-microscopic evidence of paint residue or upholstery on stripped pieces.
Many times their expert opinions helped to prove the possibility that James and Dolley could have owned a piece based on the period of construction. However, there were also a few objectswhich were judged to have been of a style or form that did not come into being until after James died and Dolley left Montpelier, therefore making them inappropriate for display at Montpelier.
Albert Skutans and Tara Gleason Chicirda examine drawers of a desk-bookcase
Chris and Albert, whose specialty is furniture conservation, spoke with us about the condition of many of the pieces, and advised us on what kinds of treatment to consider for objects which need to be stabilized and conserved before they can be safely put on display.
The day that we spent with our colleagues from The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation could not have been more productive and valuable for the Montpelier furnishings project. It was also a reminder of the importance of collaboration between museums and historic sites, and the exciting theories and advances in research that can be made when we get together to learn about each others’ collections
Ron Hurst explains to Cheryl Brush that the depth of the case, plus the short shelves, means this might be a china press.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation staff wore these headset magnifying glasses
After our last update, we were asked: what is “curatorial research” and how do Montpelier’s researchers go about figuring out whether an object belonged to the Madisons or not. Curatorial research can be very involved, but let’s start with “provenance” and continue from there over the next few posts.
So what exactly is provenance? You may have heard the term if you have visited a museum, watched “Antiques Roadshow” or “History Detectives”, or collect antiques. A good definition for “provenance” is, “a history of who owned an object”. As you can imagine, at Montpelier, we are very interested in objects that were previously owned by James and Dolley Madison; one way to describe these pieces is to say that they had “Madison provenance”.
Figuring out an object’s history often starts with finding out how the current owner acquired it. From there, many times we can work backwards from one owner to the next – and, if we are lucky, we may be able to trace the piece all the way back to James and Dolley Madison. For some objects, we are able to easily determine provenance because others have already documented it or a clear chain of ownership exists. For other pieces there are gaps in the chain of ownership. Our goal then becomes filling in the gaps. Continue Reading…
