[WASHINGTON, DC] Conservation began in October 2011 on a rare work of wax, seashells, silk, printed papers, and exotic wood created for Martha and George Washington in the early 1780s by Samuel Fraunces, owner of New York’s legendary Queen Charlotte’s Head Tavern, known today as Fraunces Tavern. Fraunces was an ambitious entrepreneur and served as steward of the Washingtons’ presidential household in Philadelphia.
Conservators, curators, and art handlers will meticulously crate the rare and intricate tableau for transport from its home at Tudor Place Historic House and Garden to the studio of a waxworks conservator. The $37,400 restoration, funded by The Richard C. von Hess Foundation of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, will take conservation specialists two years to complete. The conservation project will entail light cleaning of the all the materials in the tableau. The delicate original figures will be removed from the case and preserved for future study, while exact reproductions of the figures and their elegant costumes will be installed in the tableau when it is returned for exhibition.
“Without this conservation, it would soon have been too late to save the tableau,” said Tudor Place Executive Director Leslie Buhler. After 230 years of fluctuating temperatures and humidity, some rough handling during the Civil War, and a 20th-century home-repair effort, it suffered irreparable deterioration.”
The intricate tableau depicts a famous classical scene almost certainly chosen to reflect the first president’s long years of service in the Revolutionary War: the parting of the Trojan warrior, Hector, from his wife, Andromache, and their infant son, Astyanax.
“It stands out not just for its famous provenance and association with historic events, but for its construction and materials, its figures’ elaborate silk costumes, and its connection to 18th-century theater, literature, and entertainment,” noted Tudor Place Curator Erin Kuykendall. Fraunces crafted the gift for Mrs. Washington and presented it to her husband in 1783 at the general’s formal farewell to his Revolutionary War officers. It took 15 months of transport by ship and carriage for the piece to safely reach Mount Vernon.
Fraunces dressed his figures in elaborate 18th-century silk costumes embellished with silver threads. Hector, Andromache, the nursemaid and Astyanax, are set in front of an elaborate grotto; an architectural temple portico, domestic animals and large flowers made from wax, shells, fabrics, mica, and paper fill the case and frame the theatrical scene. All are housed in the original hand-built box of pine with mahogany veneers and glass panes on the front and sides. Fraunces dressed his figures in embroidered silk and gold thread. Here, Hector’s elaborate tunic.
Also noteworthy is that the Tudor Place piece is the only waxwork known to have been made by a man. Crafting miniature wax figures and dressing them in contemporary costume was a popular ladies’ pastime in 18th-century England and France and the American colonies. Fraunces’ interest in the material is also evident from the life-sized wax figures he exhibited at his popular Vaux-Hall Gardens, a fashionable pleasure garden along the Hudson River.
At Mount Vernon, the Washingtons placed the scene in their bed chamber atop a chest-on-chest that, like the waxwork, came to Tudor Place after Martha Washington’s death. Fraunces’s only failing as a servant, according to an account by Martha Washington’s grandson George Washington Parke Custis, was being too “ambitious, fond of display, and regardless of expense”-traits clearly reflected in this ornate grotto-work he created for the family he adulated.
Tudor Place Historic House and Garden, a National Historic Landmark in Georgetown’s Historic District, is a house museum distinguished for its neoclassical architecture, decorative arts collection and 5.5-acre garden. Built in 1816, it was home to Thomas Peter and his wife, Martha Custis Peter, granddaughter of Martha Washington, and housed six generations of the Peter family over the course of 180 years. Open to the public since 1988, the historic home is one of our nation’s historic gems.