“COLLECTING” IS PART OF our DNA. From earliest times, we have collected food, clothing, and shelter to survive. But once those basics are met, we look around and find something new and glitzy to make our hearts beat faster. Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887-1973) was a preeminent 20th century collector. She grew up in wealth and turned that into a megafortune as CEO of General Foods, notably embracing the new idea of “frozen foods” in the 1920s.  With her fortune secured, she next decided to build a life that would make her happy. 

She said she began collecting “for the joy of it.”  She loved beautiful things, and  focused her collecting on 18th century French material culture and Imperial Russian artifacts. But objects had to do more than look good. She once explained that she collected works of art and objects of prestigious provenance, but if they “did not tell any story to people who can see it, the whole point…is lost.” (MMP quote, THE HOUSES AND COLLETIONS OF MMP, p. 69.) Her main legacy is for amassing the greatest collection of Imperial Russian art outside of Russia, including 90 Faberge eggs, table sets once belonging to Catherine the Great, porcelain, and Russian Orthodox church objects.

Mrs. Post believed in dazzle, and her glass collecting suited that passion perfectly. She amassed over 1,600 pieces created in the 17th-20th centuries in China, Western Europe, Russia, and the United States. They cover a wide range of styles and techniques, and the exhibition GLASS: Art. Beauty. Design does an excellent job conveying the significance of this medium over time. The exhibition is at Hillwood, Mrs. Post’s final home in Washington, DC. Hillwood Museum & Gardens covers 25 acres in northwest Washington, and Mrs. Post acquired the land and the 1920s mansion “Abremont” (“wood hill”) in 1955, renovating it and renaming it “Hillwood.” It was bequeathed to the public upon her death in 1973.

In its museum capacity, Hillwood regularly draws on Mrs. Post’s collections to organize exhibitions for the public, an activity that reflects her belief that art and artifacts have an educational duty to tell stories beyond “pretty.”

Hillwood’s Chief Curator, Wilfried Zeisler, explains that Mrs. Post’s collection of glass is magical, whether decorating a dinner table or hanging as a chandelier. GLASS is organized not only to showcase her collection, but to give context to her collecting.  The exhibition introduction describes the nature of glass: visitors learn that glass—produced in different forms and with various techniques for over 3,500 years–was first made in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The ingredients are simple: sand (silica), with the additive of plant ash or a type of salt to lower sand’s  fusion temperature, and lime as a stabilizer. In the first century CE in Rome, the technique of blowing glass revolutionized production, which previously had been limited to cast objects. This exhibition section displays a number of jars and bowls from the 100s-400s, examples that have been borrowed from Dumbarton Oaks and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

The exhibition then moves into centuries Mrs. Post (above, left) focused on in her collecting, beginning with glass produced in the Middle Ages. Examples are shown from Venice, which ushered in a new age of glassmaking: the glass industry flourished on the island of Murano, which developed “cristallo” ( a clear glass), and various decorative techniques, including colored glass, gilding, and enamel. Also displayed from Mrs. Post’s collection is glassware in the Venetian style which she commissioned from the renowned company Salviati & Co.

“The GLASS exhibition conveys this spectacular medium’s history, but most of all, it showcases how Marjorie Merriweather Post’s passion for collecting was deeply connected to her love for entertaining…”

Bohemian glassware also attracted her attention. Glass from Bohemia was known for its colored layers, engravings, and cut decorations.  In the 1920s and 30s, Mrs Post commissioned glassware from Bohemian glassworks, and examples in the exhibition include wine glasses, bowls, and vases.  

Right: Pieces from a glassware service with hunting scene, Harrach Glassworks, Harrachov, Czech Republic (1929). Gift of Mrs. Augustus Riggs, 1973 (23.255-262).

Russian glass produced for the Imperial Court is also represented, in pieces created by the St. Petersburg glassworks, and especially by the Imperial Glassworks Manufactory. The exhibition displays decanters, tumblers, and large vases created by Russian artisans in the 1800s and early 1900s. If Mrs. Post had not been so diligent in collecting these priceless artifacts, it is probable that the Soviets would have destroyed them as examples of the bourgeois culture communism aimed to disrupt.

Mrs. Post also collected stunning French glassware such as Baccarat, and examples of this glassworks’ refined crystal cut decorations are displayed in several vases, tumblers, and two rare candelabras.

Left: Fred Wilson, ‘Othello’s Light,’ 2005. © Fred Wilson, courtesy Pace Gallery. Courtesy of Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens. Photo credit Erik Kvalsvik

While the main exhibition of GLASS is housed in an outer building, the Hillwood mansion itself is included with a show-stopping display in the dining room: the long table is set with a fanned-out array of crystal glasses awaiting water, wines, liqueurs, and champagne.  Contemporary glass pieces are also displayed in the mansion, notably in the glass chandeliers  created by Fred Wilson (b. 1954), and the blown and sculpted glass flowers of Debora Moore (b. 1960). 

The GLASS exhibition conveys this spectacular medium’s history, but most of all, it showcases how Marjorie Merriweather Post’s passion for collecting was deeply connected to her love for entertaining, and for sharing the joy she experienced from her collections.

By Amy Henderson, Senior Contributing Writer

The exhibition “GLASS: Art. Beauty. Design” will be at Hillwood Museum & Gardens until January 14, 2024.  https://hillwoodmuseum.org/

Hillwood has recently published a monumental book that includes descriptions of MMP’s glass collection. See  THE HOUSES AND COLLECTIONS OF MARJORIE MERRIWEATHER POST; THE JOY OF IT.  Rizzoli Press, 2022