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Featured Collection
The collection of fine art at the White House has evolved and grown over time. The collection began with mostly presidential portraits, commissioned or purchased by Congress, or donated by presidential descendants. In the era before photography, some presidents invited painters to set up studios in the White House to record significant events and paint their likeness. In the late
Those who lived it remembered the 1850s as the most elegant era the white House had ever known. Emerged from the war with Mexico, its western boundary stretched to the Pacific Ocean, the United States was rich with promise, and while the decade was cursed by economic crisis in the Panic of 1857 and the violent debate over slavery, few would
Tiber Creek now flows safely beneath a masonry vault, over which passes Constitution Avenue. In the 1820s, the open creek raced dangerously to the Potomac River through the sweeping landscape you see here. From marshy creek banks, the land rose gently to the elevation upon which the White House stood. Its muddy realities were covered by grasses and wildflowers.President
One of the most revered historic interiors of the White House is the one that President Abraham Lincoln occupied as an office. Located in the east end of the Second Floor, it shared the upstairs with the family's private living quarters. Although intended as a bedroom, it had been used for an office since 1817.Historical documentation, written and visual, is
The most famous hostess in the history of the White House was First Lady Dolley Madison, a lady in whom legend and fact intertwine now, as they often did in her own time. In this painting, the artist shows the principal drawing room of the Madison White House, today's oval Blue Room sometime during the years from 1810 to 1814, when her
The artist's imagination here has been sparked by both the photographs and extensive invoices listing hundreds of types of plants purchased for the White House greenhouse and conservatory. In 1833, President Andrew Jackson built the first greenhouse, an orangery, which was moved to adjoin the house in 1856 located off the west end of the main hall. After the conservatory burned in 1867,
The East Room, the largest interior in the White House, was conceived in planning the house as an official gathering place where, among other ceremonies of state, Congress would convene to present bills to the president. President Thomas Jefferson disposed of state ceremony early-on, so there was no urgency to complete the room. It was unfinished when the British burned
Perhaps the most legendary object in the White House past, apart from the Lincoln bed and Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington, was removed a century ago and later destroyed. It was the Tiffany screen of colored glass that stood in the Entrance Hall a mere nineteen years, from 1883 until 1902. This popular expression of the Aesthetic taste in design was
President Rutherford B. Hayes announced when he was elected that he would serve for one term only; this he did, and it was an uplifting four years for the country. With his wife, First Lady Lucy Hayes Hayes, President Hayes was determined to return tranquility to a nation troubled by recent political scandal and economic depression. They set out to
The most distinctive of the state interiors in the White House is the Blue Room. Located central in the plan, it projects toward the magnificent view of the Potomac valley. In planning a new office in 1909 President William Howard Taft elected to create an oval office, to replicate the shape and thus relate the official office to the historic White
