Taste for Splendor: Russian Imperial & European Treasures from the Hillwood Museum

Marjorie Merriweather Post exhibited a taste for splendor in her collecting and in the furnishing of Hillwood, her residence in Washington, D.C. She first began to acquire Sevres porcelain and French furniture and tapestries in the 1920s and became interested in Russian art in 1937, when she lived in the Soviet Union as wife of the Ambassador. She continued to collect both French and Russian art for the rest of her life, eventually amassing the largest and most comprehensive Russian collection outside of Russia.

This volume views the masterpieces in the Hillwood collection in chronological fashion without regard to national origin, allowing an understanding of Russian art of the 18th and 19th centuries within a broader European context.

The Hillwood Museum in Washington houses the Russian Imperial and European art collected by Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post, an accomplished businesswoman and passionate connoisseur. The collection is unique in the United States and probably in the world outside Russia and was started when Post accompanied her husband, Ambassador Joseph E. Davies, to Russia in 1937-38. Excellent photographs convey the beauty of the house and the splendor with which it was decorated. The collection contains pieces in every artistic medium?porcelain, landscape paintings, portraits, furniture, gold and silver objects, crystal, enamel boxes, and more?and each piece is a work of the highest quality and so arranged that one understands the full range of Russian Imperial achievement in the visual arts. This volume should be included in every library where works on Russian art and culture are collected.?Martin Chasin, Adult Inst., Bridgeport,
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