Washington, Part 4
The National Portrait Gallery is yet another of the Smithsonian Institution’s fantastic museums. The building in which it is housed, and which it shares with the American Art Museum, was Washington’s old post office, then was a hospital during the Civil War, where Walt Whitman volunteered. The gallery most famously contains the portraits of the presidents of the United States. (Normal Rockwell’s Nixon is good.)
But I was pleased to see how many other wonderful paintings and sculptures were. Some were surprisingly old, others were simply beautiful to look at. There were paintings of authors like Mark Twain, Henry James, Louisa May Alcott, and a child Edith Wharton, and statesmen like Ben Franklin and a young Frederick Douglass. I am a big fan of marble sculpture, and some of what was there was extremely impressive. I wish I would have taken pictures of some of the eighteenth century American furniture that was on display in some of the rooms upstairs. It’s not the sort of think I’d choose to have in my house, but the highboys were beyond compare, made of the finest woods, with elaborate carving. Alas, I forgot to take pictures.
While I was at the museum I had the place practically to myself. Wandering through parts of the building it was just me and the security guards. Any many parts of the building were as impressive as the art works. The courtyard was cool, too.
Ford’s Theater is not far from the White House. It was one of the biggest theaters in the city when Lincoln went to see a production of Our American Cousin. The Petersen House is directly across the street from Ford’s Theater, and it was that proximity that led the slain president to be placed in a bed in a room on the first floor which the Petersens rented to a fellow who happened to be out for the evening. President Lincoln never regained consciousness, and died in that room the following morning. I learned all this from the National Park Service ranger stationed in the Petersen House with whom I had a long conversation alone in that very room. It was an odd and sad feeling.
Leave a Reply