Rutherford B. Hayes served meals off china painted with American wildlife scenes. Abraham Lincoln preferred the formal presidential-seal plates. One of James Monroe’s sets was decorated with a very feminine sprinkling of tiny pink roses.
There has been presidential china as long as there have been White House residents. “The Presidential Dish: Mrs. Woodrow Wilson and the White House China Room” at the Woodrow Wilson House pays tribute to the utilitarian works of art by re-creating a portion of the White House China Room and displaying various original china pieces used by presidents from George Washington to Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson’s second wife, Edith, organized the original White House collection in 1917, says Wilson museum curator Frank Aucella. Ironically, Mrs. Wilson never got to use her official china. The president’s first wife was frugal and did not order china. By the time Edith Wilson’s was in stock, the United States had entered World War I and the president had more pressing matters to attend to than state dinners. Following the war, Wilson suffered a stroke and the first couple no longer entertained.
Nonetheless, Mrs. Wilson’s legacy as the China Room’s founder endures.
“We are celebrating the 90th anniversary of Mrs. Wilson’s legacy,” Mr. Aucella says. “She made this her own special project. We have re-created the room as it was envisioned by Edith Wilson.”
“The Presidential Dish” will be on display at Woodrow Wilson House through Aug. 4. The collection is on loan from the collection of Set Charles Momjian, a Philadelphia collector of presidential porcelain and other memorabilia for more than 50 years.
Mr. Momjian’s collection is well-organized, but the White House’s collection was not when Mrs. Wilson got started, Mr. Aucella says. Each administration had its own design, and over the years, many pieces had been smuggled out, “lost” or sold.
Mrs. Wilson commissioned the diplomats cloakroom in the White House to be fitted with shelving and glass cabinets to display the housewares.
“She really wanted to showcase American heritage,” Mr. Aucella says of Mrs. Wilson. “When diplomats arrived, they would get a sense of American history.”
The Wilson House has built reproductions of the shelves to hold the display as well. Hand-lettered identification cards point out the china’s owners, just as they do in the display at the White House. First lady Laura Bush visited the Wilson House display in December and commented on how accurately the staff had captured the details of the White House China Room.
The China Room was open to visitors for many years, but it is now off-limits on White House tours. For Washington visitors with an appreciation for decorative arts or historic housewares, this might be the only time to see President Lincoln’s soup tureen.
Among the more than 100 pieces on display:
• A vast array of Hayes’ Limoges flora and fauna series. The china was painted by Theodore Davis, a well-known illustrator in his day. Be sure to check out the fruit plates decorated with a series of squirrel scenes.
Mr. Aucella offers a bit of presidential trivia about the Hayes china: “We know that President Harding and President Truman used some of the china as chips to settle poker debts.”
• Theodore Roosevelt’s Wedgwood plates with a simple gold-striped border and presidential seal.
• Lincoln’s purple-and-gold-bordered set featuring an American eagle perched on a red, white and blue shield. This pattern is one of the most recognized presidential patterns, the exhibit points out. It was reordered later and used by the administrations of Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant and Chester A. Arthur.
• The state service for the Grant administration, which reflects the mid-19th-century trend of using ornamental flowers in design. The scalloped-edge china, manufactured by Haviland & Co. in Limoges, France, includes a bright day lily in the center and a small presidential seal on the border.
• The Wilson state service, the first set of White House china to be made in the United States. The Lenox plates, with their bold, dark-blue border and gold seal, represented a refinement of the American preference for classicism that paralleled World War I. The new American classicism was simple and unpretentious, moving away from the fancier styles of the early 20th century.
Frank G. Holmes, who designed the china, said at the time that it was “so simple and so unostentatious that it cannot but suit the most aesthetic taste and yet so rich in tone it commensurates with the dignity of the home of our chief executive.”
WHEN YOU GO
Location: “The Presidential Dish: Mrs. Woodrow Wilson and the White House China Room,” is in the Woodrow Wilson House, 2430 S St. NW, Washington, between Connecticut and Massachusetts avenues.
Hours: Open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Closed Monday and major holidays.
Admission: $7.50 for adults, $6.50 for seniors, $3 for students; children younger than 7 admitted free.
Parking: Street parking is available nearby.
More information: 202/387-4062 or www.woodrow wilsonhouse.org
Notes:
• The Woodrow Wilson House, the 28th president’s last home, is the District’s only presidential museum. It has been preserved much as it was when the Wilsons lived there in the 1920s. Guided tours of the house are available.
• Reproductions of several of the china patterns on display are for sale in the museum gift shop.
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