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HILLWOOD ESTATE MUSEUM & GARDENS

WASHINGTON, US

HILLWOOD ESTATE MUSEUM & GARDENS

Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, located in Washington, D.C., is a historic house museum and former residence of businesswoman and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post. Originally built in the 1920s as a Georgian revival mansion called Arbremont for Daisy Peck Blodgett's daughter Helen, the p

roperty was purchased by Post in 1955 and renamed Hillwood, after her former estate in Brookville, New York. Post hired architect Alexander McIlvaine to rebuild the interior, completing renovations in 1956, including moving library doors to frame a view of the Washington Monument. The estate opened as a museum in 1977 after the Smithsonian declined to convert it, and it now houses over 17,000 objects from Post's original collection and later acquisitions. Collection highlights include a full-length portrait of Catherine the Great, two chests of drawers designed by Jean-Henri Riesener, the official cabinetmaker of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, a portrait of the Duchess of Parma and Her Daughter by Jean-Marc Nattier, The Countess Samoilova and Her Foster Daughter by Karl Briullov (1834), A Boyar Wedding Feast by Konstantin Makovsky (1883), and two Imperial Easter Eggs by the House of Fabergé that were gifts to Maria Fedorovna from her son Nicholas II. Other notable objects include a chandelier from the Catherine Palace, Fabergé artworks including the Twelve Monograms Easter egg, Bleu Celeste wares from Manufacture nationale de Sèvres including a 1754 tureen, Mrs. Post Portrait by D

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