Hillwood Museum: Art, Gardens and Bourgeois Lifestyle in Northwest D.C.
The Hillwood museum in Washington DC is a large estate with its own name, acres of gardens and a sumptuous collection of domestic and foreign art. The 37-year-old Hillwood museum was the home of Post cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and one of the country's top art collector's museums featuring one of the biggest collections of imperial Russian art outside of Russia.
Located next to Rock Creek Park, north of Cleveland Park, Hillwood is a 25-acre property of woodlands and gardens. The mansion is Georgian-style, designed in 1926 and expanded by Post to an American country house tradition, of which many homes in the area were designed as large, spacious summer and weekend homes near the city.
Post, a famous businesswoman and New York socialite, was an avid collector as many wealthy socialites of her time were. She filled her homes in Manhattan, upstate New York, Florida and her yacht with decorative pieces, leaning towards French design and furnishings. It wasn't until she went to live in the former Soviet Union with her third husband, who was the American ambassador in 1937-1938, that she discovered her affinity for Russian imperial artistic expressions.
Much was being sold during the political turmoil of the time. She collected a large amount of its decorative pieces, including silver, textiles, porcelains and other Russian icons, including many of the famed Russian Fabergé eggs, which are now on rotating display at Hillwood.
Post bought the house in 1955 as her residence and place to display all the art she gathered from her travels abroad, with intentions of turning it into a museum. She hired a curator and museum expert to help her organize and establish it as a museum. When she passed away in 1973, she bequeathed the museum to the public.
Post's art collection numbers around 16,000 objects, many of which focus on 18th and 19th century Russian art as well as 18th century French decorative arts. There are Beauvais tapestries, two Imperial Easter Eggs by Carl Fabergé, the diamond crown worn by Empress Alexandra during her wedding to Nicholas II, and a collection of dresses and clothing worn by Post and her family.
The gardens, too, are separated in different distinguishing “rooms," including a French parterre, a rose garden, a lunar lawn, a Japanese garden, cutting garden and greenhouses.
HelloWashingtonDC Tip: Make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes for your tour, and if you can, set aside at least three hours, especially during warmer months. The museum provides Baby Bjorns, wheelchairs and waterproof picnic blankets for no charge.
Posted by Rin-rin Yu
