Dumbarton Oaks
Encyclopedia
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- See Dumbarton Oaks ParkDumbarton Oaks ParkThe Dunbarton Oaks Park is a public park, located in the 3100 block of R Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Georgetown neighborhood. Access is via...
for the national park. See Dumbarton Oaks ConferenceDumbarton Oaks ConferenceThe Dumbarton Oaks Conference or, more formally, the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization was an international conference at which the United Nations was formulated and negotiated among international leaders...
for the 1944 meeting that laid the groundwork for the United Nations.
Dumbarton Oaks is the conventional name for the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, situated on a historic property in the Georgetown
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Georgetown is a neighborhood located in northwest Washington, D.C., situated along the Potomac River. Founded in 1751, the port of Georgetown predated the establishment of the federal district and the City of Washington by 40 years...
neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
The institution is administered by the Trustees for Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. Its founders, Robert Woods Bliss (1875–1962) and his wife Mildred Barnes Bliss
Mildred Barnes Bliss
Mildred Barnes Bliss was an American art collector, philanthropist, and one of the cofounders of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C....
(1879–1969), gave the property to Harvard in 1940. The research institute that has emerged from this bequest is dedicated to supporting scholarship in the fields of Byzantine
Byzantine studies
Byzantine studies is an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities that addresses the history, culture, costumes, religion, art, such as literature and music, science, economy, and politics of the Byzantine Empire. The discipline's founder in Germany is considered to be the philologist Hieronymus...
, Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
, and garden and landscape architecture
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
studies, especially through its research fellowships, meetings, exhibitions, and publications. Dumbarton Oaks also opens its gardens and museum collections to the public and hosts public lectures and a concert series.
Early History
The land of Dumbarton Oaks was formerly part of the Rock of Dumbarton grant that Queen Anne made in 1702 to Colonel Ninian Beall (ca. 1625-1717). About 1801, William Hammond Dorsey (1764–1818) built the first house on the property (the central block of the existing structure) and an orangery, and in the mid-nineteenth century, Edward Magruder Linthicum (1787–1869) greatly enlarged the residence and named it The Oaks. The Oaks also was the Washington residence of U.S. Senator and Vice President John C. CalhounJohn C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...
(1782–1850) between 1822 and 1829.
The Bliss Era
Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss acquired the property in 1920, and in 1933 they gave it the name of Dumbarton Oaks, combining its two historic names. The Blisses engaged the architect Frederick H. Brooke (1876–1960) to renovate and enlarge the house (1921–1923), thereby creating a Colonial Revival residence from the existing Linthicum-era Italianate structure. Over time, the Blisses increased the grounds to approximately 54 acres (218,530.4 m²) and engaged the landscape architect Beatrix FarrandBeatrix Farrand
Beatrix Jones Farrand was a landscape gardener and landscape architect in the United States. Her career included commissions to design the gardens for private residences, estates and country homes, public parks, botanic gardens, college campuses, and the White House.Farrand was one of the founding...
(1872–1959) to design a series of terraced gardens and a wilderness on this acreage, in collaboration with Mildred Bliss (1921–1947). The Blisses’ architectural additions to the estate included four service court buildings (1926) and a music room (1928), designed by Lawrence Grant White (1887–1956) of the New York City architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White, and the superintendent’s dwelling (1933), designed by Farrand. Later renamed the Fellows Building, this building is now known as the Guest House.
After retiring to Dumbarton Oaks in 1933, the Blisses immediately began laying the groundwork for the creation of a research institute. They greatly increased their already considerable collection of artworks and reference books, forming the nucleus of what would become the Research Library and Collection. In 1938 they engaged the architect Thomas T. Waterman (1900–1951) to build two pavilions to house their Byzantine Collection and an 8,000-volume library, and in 1940 gave Dumbarton Oaks (which included about 16 acres (64,749.8 m²) of land) to Harvard University, Robert Bliss’s alma mater. At the same time they gave a portion of the grounds—some 27 acres—to the National Park Service to establish the Dumbarton Oaks Park.
In 1941, the administrative structure of Dumbarton Oaks, now owned by Harvard University, was modeled according to the following design: the Trustees for Harvard University, composed primarily of the President and Fellows of Harvard College
President and Fellows of Harvard College
The President and Fellows of Harvard College is the more fundamental of Harvard University's two governing boards...
, made all appointments, including those to the Administrative Committee, which in turn would supervise the entire operation and refer to the Trustees such recommendations as may require their action. This committee was first chaired by Paul J. Sachs
Paul J. Sachs
Paul Sachs was Harvard associate director of the Fogg Art Museum, a partner in the financial firm Goldman Sachs and the developer of one of the early museum studies courses in the United States.-History:...
(1878–1965), Harvard Professor and Associate Director of the Fogg Art Museum, but by 1953 it was chaired by the Dean or Provost and, beginning in 1961 and thereafter, by the President of Harvard University.
In early years the Administrative Committee appointed a Board of Scholars to make recommendations in regard to all scholarly activities. The Board of Scholars was first organized in 1942 (with eleven members, of which seven were from Harvard); its membership was increased to twenty-two members by 1960. In 1952, this board was titled the Board for Scholars in Byzantine Studies. In 1953, a Garden Advisory Committee was created to make recommendations in regard to the gardens and, later, to the Garden Library and its Fellows, and in 1963 an Advisory Committee for Pre-Columbian Art was created. The Administrative Committee also historically appointed a Visiting Committee consisting of persons interested in the welfare and broad aims of Dumbarton Oaks. This committee was abolished in 1960 when it was replaced by a Board of Advisors.
Wishing to increase the scholarly mission of Dumbarton Oaks, in the early 1960s the Blisses sponsored the construction of two new wings, one designed by Philip Johnson
Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was an influential American architect.In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and later , as a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture...
(1906–2005) to house the Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art and its research library and, the other, a garden library designed by Frederic Rhinelander King (1887–1972), of the New York City architectural firm Wyeth
Marion Sims Wyeth
Marion Sims Wyeth was an American architect who designed numerous mansions in Florida.He was born in New York City. Wyeth's father John Allan Wyeth founded in 1882 the New York Polyclinic Hospital . His grandfather J. Marion Sims founded the country's first Women's Hospital in 1855 Marion Sims...
and King, to house the botanical and garden architecture rare books and garden history reference materials that Mildred Bliss had collected.
Dumbarton Oaks Concerto
In 1937, Mildred Bliss commissioned Igor StravinskyIgor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
(1882–1971) to compose a concerto in the tradition of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos
Brandenburg concertos
The Brandenburg concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721 . They are widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era...
to celebrate the Blisses’ thirtieth wedding anniversary. Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...
(1887–1979) conducted its premiere on May 8, 1938 in the Dumbarton Oaks music room, due to the composer’s indisposition from tuberculosis. At Mildred Bliss’s request, the Concerto in E-flat
Concerto in E-flat (Dumbarton Oaks)
Concerto in E-flat , subtitled “Dumbarton Oaks 8-v-1938,” is a chamber concerto by Igor Stravinsky, named for the Dumbarton Oaks estate of Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss in Washington, DC, who commissioned it for their thirtieth wedding anniversary...
was subtitled “Dumbarton Oaks 8-v-1938,” and the work is now generally known as The Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. Igor Stravinsky conducted the concerto in the Dumbarton Oaks music room on April 25, 1947 and again for the Blisses’ golden wedding anniversary, on May 8, 1958. He also conducted the first performance of his Septet, which is dedicated to the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, in the music room on January 24, 1954.
Dumbarton Oaks Conference
In the late summer and early fall of 1944, at the height of the Second World War, a series of important diplomatic meetings took place at Dumbarton Oaks, officially known as the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security OrganizationDumbarton Oaks Conference
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference or, more formally, the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization was an international conference at which the United Nations was formulated and negotiated among international leaders...
. Delegations from China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States deliberated over proposals for the establishment of an organization to maintain peace and security in the world. Their meetings resulted in the United Nations Charter
United Nations Charter
The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the international organization called the United Nations. It was signed at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, United States, on 26 June 1945, by 50 of the 51 original member countries...
that was adopted in San Francisco in 1945.
The Post-Bliss Era
In the preamble to her last will and testament, Mildred Bliss offered the following assessment of what she and her husband had created at Dumbarton Oaks:- In applying the gifts to Harvard, I call upon the present and future President and Fellows of Harvard College and all those who determine its policies, to remember that Dumbarton Oaks is conceived in a new pattern, where quality and not number shall determine the choice of its scholars; that it is the home of the Humanities, not a mere aggregation of books and objects of art; that the house itself and the gardens have their educational importance and that all are of humanistic value.
- Those responsible for scholarship at Dumbarton Oaks should remember that the Humanities cannot be fostered by confusing Instruction with Education; that it was my husband's as well as it is my wish that the Mediterranean interpretation of the Humanist disciplines shall predominate; that gardens have their place in the Humanist order of life; and that trees are noble elements to be protected by successive generations and are not to be neglected or lightly destroyed. I charge those responsible for carrying forward the life at Dumbarton Oaks to be guided by the standards set there during the lifetime of my husband and me. The distinction of the scholars themselves as well as of their writings; the interpretation of the texts and the arts; the quality of the music performed; the free discussion within the limits of good deportment, and the whole tempered by the serenity of open spaces and ancient trees; all these are as integral a part of Humanism at Dumbarton Oaks as are the Library and the Collections. The fulfillment of this vision of high intellectual adventure seen through the open gates of Dumbarton Oaks will add lustre to Harvard, to the academic tone of our country and to scholarship throughout the world.
To help the institution better fulfill its mandate, administrative changes were slowly introduced after 1969, the year Mildred Bliss died. The Garden Advisory Committee was abolished in 1974 and replaced in 1975 by the Advisory Committee for Studies in Landscape Architecture. In 1975, the Advisory Committee for Pre-Columbian Art similarly was renamed the Advisory Committee for Pre-Columbian Studies. The Board for Scholars in Byzantine Studies was abolished in 1975 and replaced by the Senior Fellows Committee. In 1981, the three advisory groups were uniformly named the Senior Fellows. Beginning in 1979, the Administrative Committee became composed of four members almost always including the President, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
The Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences is the largest of the seven faculties that constitute Harvard University.Headquartered principally in Cambridge, Massachusetts and centered in the historic Harvard Yard, FAS is the only division of the university responsible for both undergraduate and...
, a senior faculty member of Harvard University, and (until 1994) the Director of Dumbarton Oaks. The Board of Advisors was abolished in 1991.
The institution has continued to be a major sponsor of archaeological excavations and art restoration
Art restoration
Art restoration is related to art conservation. Restoration is a process that attempts to return the work of art to some previous state that the restorer imagines was the "original". This was commonly done in the past...
projects. During the 1970s it funded major fieldwork projects work in Cyprus, Syria, and Turkey, efforts that today span the entire geographical breadth of the former Byzantine commonwealth
Byzantine commonwealth
Byzantine Commonwealth is a term coined by 20th century historians to refer to the area where Byzantine liturgical tradition and general cultural influence was spread during the Middle Ages by Byzantine missionaries...
. Dumbarton Oaks began to fund archaeology in Central and South America in the mid-1990s.
In 2005, Dumbarton Oaks inaugurated a new gardeners’ court and a 44500 square feet (4,134.2 m²) library, both designed by Robert Venturi
Robert Venturi
Robert Charles Venturi, Jr. is an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major figures in the architecture of the twentieth century...
(b. 1925) of the Philadelphia architectural firm of Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates. In 2008 the institute also completed an extensive renovation of the main house and museum wing, including restoration of its historic period rooms, several of which were created by the Parisian designer, Armand-Albert Rateau (1882–1938).
Institutional Program
The mission of Dumbarton Oaks is to support and promote scholarship in three areas of study: Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, and garden and landscape architecture. Through a fellowship program, the institute invites scholars from around the world for an academic year or a summer to pursue individual research. A grants program also supports archaeological research, materials analysis, and photographic surveys of objects and monuments. In addition, each studies program sponsors public lectures, symposia, and colloquia as well as scholarly publications including annual journals, symposium proceedings, and occasional monographs.Byzantine Studies
The program in Byzantine Studies, established in 1940, supports scholarship on the civilization of the Byzantine EmpireByzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries and its interactions with neighboring cultures and civilizations, including the late Roman, early Christian, western medieval, Slavic, and Near Eastern.
Pre-Columbian Studies
The program in Pre-Columbian Studies was founded in 1963 to support the study of the art and archaeology of the ancient AmericasPre-Columbian era
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
. The program focuses on the cultures that thrived in the western hemisphere from northern Mexico to southern South America, from the earliest times to the sixteenth century.
Garden and Landscape Architecture Studies
Dumbarton Oaks awarded the first fellowship in landscape architectureLandscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
in 1956 under the provisions of the Dumbarton Oaks Garden Endowment Fund established in 1951 by the Blisses. However, the program in Garden and Landscape Studies (formerly known as Landscape Architecture Studies) was established in 1969 and inaugurated in 1972 to support the study of gardens and the history of landscape architecture around the world from ancient times to the present.
Museum and Collections
The Dumbarton Oaks Museum features collections of Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art, as well as European artworks and furnishings. Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss initiated these collections in the first half of the twentieth century and provided the vision for future acquisitions even after giving Dumbarton Oaks to Harvard University.The Byzantine Collection spans the imperial, ecclesiastical, and secular realms and comprises more than 1,200 objects from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. Although the collection emphasizes objects of precious materials, underscoring the conception of Byzantine art as luxury art, the collection also includes large-scale works such as mosaics from Antioch and relief sculpture, as well as more than two hundred textiles and comprehensive holdings of coins and seals. It owns four manuscripts (see, e.g., Minuscule 705
Minuscule 705
Minuscule 705 , ε360 , is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 13th century. The manuscript has complex contents...
). In addition to its Byzantine holdings, the collection includes Greek, Roman, and western medieval artworks and objects from the ancient Near East, pharaonic and Ptolemaic Egypt, and various Islamic cultures.
The Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art comprises objects from the ancient cultures of Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
, the Intermediate Area
Intermediate Area
The Intermediate Area is an archaeological geographical area of the Americas that was defined in its clearest form by Gordon R. Willey in his 1971 book An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol. 2: South America...
, and the Andes. Among its most important holdings are a variety of sculptures in stone, including carvings of Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
deities and animals and several large relief panels bearing the likenesses of Maya
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
kings. In addition there are sculpted anthropomorphic figurines and polished jade renderings of ritual objects from the Olmec
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
, Veracruz
Veracruz
Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave , is one of the 31 states that, along with the Federal District, comprise the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is...
, and Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...
cultures as well as molded and painted ceramics of the Nasca, Moche
Moche
'The Moche civilization flourished in northern Peru from about 100 AD to 800 AD, during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state...
, and Wari
Wari
Wari may refer to:*Wari', Amerindian nation**Wari’ language, spoken by Wari'*Wari culture, Middle Horizon civilization that flourished in Peru*Wari Empire, political formation that emerged around AD500 in Peru...
cultures. Gold and silver objects from the Chavín
Chavin
Chavin may refer to:* Chavín culture, an early culture of the Andean region, pre-dating the Moche culture in Peru* Chavín de Huantar, an archaeological site built by the Chavín culture* Chavin, Indre, a commune of the Indre département in France...
, Lambayeque
Lambayeque
The name Lambayeque originates from "Llampayec", an idol that was worshipped in northern Peru. It can refer to the following Peruvian locations:* The city of Lambayeque, Peru* The Lambayeque District* The Lambayeque Province* The Lambayeque Region...
, Chimú, and Inca
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire , was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century...
cultures offer evidence of the expertise achieved by Andean metalsmiths, and over forty textiles and works in feathers testify to the importance of fiber arts in this region.
The House Collection consists primarily of Dumbarton Oaks’ historic buildings and interiors, Asian, European, and American artworks, and interior furnishings. Principal to the collection is the renaissance-style music room. The ceiling and flooring of this room were inspired by examples at the guardroom of the historic Château de Cheverny
Château de Cheverny
The Château de Cheverny is located at Cheverny, in the département of Loir-et-Cher in the Loire Valley in France.-History:The lands were purchased by Henri Hurault, comte de Cheverny, a lieutenant-general and military treasurer for Louis XI, whose descendent the marquis de Vibraye is the present...
near Paris and were fabricated by the Parisian designer, Armand Albert Rateau. The music room features displays of tapestries, sculptures, paintings, and furniture dating from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The Blisses used the music room for hosting musical programs and scholarly lectures, and it continues to serve these purposes.
Philip Johnson Pre-Columbian Pavilion
In 1959, the Blisses commissioned the New York City architect Philip JohnsonPhilip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was an influential American architect.In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and later , as a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture...
to design a pavilion for the Robert Woods Bliss Collection of Pre-Columbian Art. This building—eight domed circular galleries (having an unroofed fountain area at the center) set within a perfect square—recalls Islamic architectural
Islamic architecture
Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture....
ideas, and Johnson later credited the design to his interest in the early sixteenth-century Turkish architect Mimar Sinan. The pavilion was built in the Copse, one of the designed landscapes at Dumbarton Oaks, and Johnson employed curved glass walls to blend the landscape with the building. He later reminisced that his idea was to fit a small pavilion into an existing treescape, to make the building become part of the Copse. Johnson maintained that he wanted the garden to “march right up to the museum displays and become part of them,” with the plantings brushing the glass walls and the sound of splashing water audible in the central fountain. To further this idea, he incorporated four interior glazed planter areas situated between the galleries and the fountain.
Johnson also believed that the pavilion was to be best enjoyed from the inside. In addition to offering interesting garden views, the eight gallery spaces allow for a well-organized circulation plan. They also provide intimate areas for visitors to enjoy and study the Pre-Columbian objects. Each interconnected exhibition gallery is twenty-five feet in diameter, having curved glass walls supported by cylindrical columns sheathed in Illinois Agatan marble and shallow domes that rise from flat bronze rings. The floors are teak, laid radially and ended by wide rims of mottled green Vermont marble.
Library
The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library contains more than 200,000 items that support the three studies programs. The Byzantine holdings of materials concerning late classical, early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval art and archaeology, which numbered 8,000 volumes at the time of the Blisses’ gift, now number 149,000 volumes with more than 550 journal subscriptions. In 1964, the Research Library acquired Robert Woods Bliss's personal collection of 2,000 rare and important works on Pre-Columbian art history, anthropology, and archaeology, which has since grown to more than 32,000 volumes, and Mildred Bliss’s garden library, including rare volumes and prints, which now includes 27,000 books and pamphlets. The Rare Book Collection has holdings of more than 10,000 volumes, prints, drawings, photographs, and blueprints.The Rare Book Room, designed by Frederick Rhinelander King in the style of an 18th-century library, was completed in 1963 to house the collection of rare books and drawings which had been started by Mildred Bliss. Her library was enlarged, with advice from Beatrix Farrand, designer of the Dumbarton Oaks gardens, once Mrs. Bliss conceived the idea in the 1950s of starting a program of studies in landscape architecture.
The collection of books originated in Mrs. Bliss’s aim to preserve illustrated books from being broken up for individual plates. There are volumes of views which are especially valuable for the study of gardens since few of the sites survive as originally created. For example, Giovanni Battista Falda
Giovanni Battista Falda
Giovanni Battista Falda was an Italian architect and engraver. He is mainly known for his engravings of contemporary and antique structures in Rome....
’s 17th-century plates showing the gardens of Rome; views of Versailles
Gardens of Versailles
The Gardens of Versailles occupy part of what was once the Domaine royal de Versailles, the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover some 800 hectares of land, much of which is landscaped in the classic French Garden style perfected here by...
and other royal gardens in Louis XIV’s France by Perelle and Sylvestre; and Jan Kip and Leonard Knyff
Jan Kip and Leonard Knyff
The inexorably linked careers of Jan Kip and Leonard Knyff trace a specialty of engraved views of English country houses, represented in minute detail from the bird's-eye view that was a long-established pictorial convention for topography...
’s early-18th-century bird’s-eye views of English country estates. The latter works yield almost the only evidence of the appearance of these geometrical or regular designs before their supplanting by the irregular or “picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
” taste.
Since landscape architecture grew out of other professions – most obviously, those of architecture, botany and horticulture – the collection also includes treatises by great architectural theorists such as Alberti, Palladio
Andrea Palladio
Andrea Palladio was an architect active in the Republic of Venice. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily by Vitruvius, is widely considered the most influential individual in the history of Western architecture...
, and Serlio
Sebastiano Serlio
Sebastiano Serlio was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau...
as well as works by such distinguished botanists as Clusius and Linnaeus, or Catesby
Mark Catesby
Mark Catesby was an English naturalist. Between 1731 and 1743 Catesby published his Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, the first published account of the flora and fauna of North America...
’s Natural History of Carolina. Books on buildings that served as models for garden structures like pavilions and follies
Folly
In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs...
and others relating to the design and decoration of fountains, with the hydraulics necessary for their operation, are included, along with books on sculpture and iconography.
Many volumes in the library describe great gardens or garden practice, for example Robert Castell’s The Villas of the Ancients Illustrated and various editions of Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing was an American landscape designer, horticulturalist, and writer, a prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival style in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine...
’s A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening. The collection is also rich in works illustrating flowers and plants – early herbals
Herbal
AThe use of a or an depends on whether or not herbal is pronounced with a silent h. herbal is "a collection of descriptions of plants put together for medicinal purposes." Expressed more elaborately — it is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their...
and botanical writings, floras
Flora (book)
A Flora is a book or other work which describes the plant species occurring in an area or time period, often with the aim of allowing identification. Some classic and modern floras are listed below....
– works on horticulture, and even agriculture as it affects the life of country estates, such as a 1495 edition of Pietro de' Crescenzi’s Il libro della agricultura. The herbals represent early attempts to create a coherent system of plant description and are forerunners of today’s science of taxonomy
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
. Two of them, the Herbarius Latinus, printed in Passau in 1486, and the Hortus Sanitatis, printed in Mainz in 1491, are among the earliest printed books with woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
illustrations.
As the science of botany developed, so did the art of plant illustration. Early herbals had simple, not very realistic, woodcut illustrations of plants. By the 17th century new graphic techniques, such as metal plate engraving and etching, permitted highly detailed botanical renderings. These techniques were also used by artists who created the newly popular still lifes of flowers and fruits, and by artisans, such as jewelers, tapestry weavers, and furniture decorators, in pattern books recording their floral designs. The increasing sophistication of techniques of plant illustration in the 18th century culminated in the development of color printing. The library owns copies of works by Redouté
Pierre-Joseph Redouté
Pierre-Joseph Redouté , was a Belgian painter and botanist, known for his watercolours of roses, lilies and other flowers at Malmaison. He was nicknamed "The Raphael of flowers"....
, the first artist to exploit fully the potential of color printing of stipple engravings in such renowned books as Les Roses or the multi-volume Liliacées, and works by other masters of the period, including Georg Dionysius Ehret
Georg Dionysius Ehret
Georg Dionysius Ehret was a botanist and entomologist, and is best known for his botanical illustrations.Ehret was born in Germany to Ferdinand Christian Ehret, a gardener and competent draughtsman, and Anna Maria Ehret. Beginning his working life as a gardener's apprentice near Heidelberg, he...
’s Plantae et papiliones rariores, 1748-1759.
In addition to printed books, there is a collection of manuscripts and drawings covering the same range of topics – a late 17th-century planting plan for an Italian garden; Hans Puechfeldner’s fine images of late 17th-century mannerist gardens; a number of paintings by oriental artists executed for western patrons to record discoveries of new plants made during the expansion of Europe into the East. The Library owns the original watercolors for Buchoz
Pierre Joseph Buchoz
Pierre-Joseph Buc'hoz Paris was a French physician, lawyer and naturalist.Buc'hoz become a doctor of medicine in Nancy in 1763. He was devoted to botany, but was also interested in the treatment of melancholy and recommended music as therapy...
’s Collection des Fleurs dans les Jardins de la Chine as well as the gouaches by Clara Maria Pope for Samuel Curtis’s Beauties of Flora. Watercolors by Redouté, among other artists, a diminutive late 16th-century manuscript of flower illuminations attributed to Jacques le Moyne, and an early Italian manuscript herbal are just some of the library’s treasures.
The collection continues to be developed. Noteworthy acquisitions from recent years are Francesco Colonna
Francesco Colonna
Francesco Colonna was an Italian Dominican priest and monk who was credited with the authorship of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili by an acrostic in the text.He lived in Venice, and preached at St. Mark's Cathedral...
’s La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili , called in English Poliphilo's Strife of Love in a Dream, is a romance said to be by Francesco Colonna and a famous example of early printing...
, 1545 edition; Salomon de Caus
Salomon de Caus
Salomon de Caus was a French engineer and once credited with the development of the steam engine.Salomon was the elder brother of Isaac de Caus. Being a Huguenot, he spent his life moving across Europe....
’s La pratique et demonstration des horloges solaire, published in Paris in 1624; and Humphry Repton
Humphry Repton
Humphry Repton was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of the 19th century...
’s album of 500 engraved views taken from William Peacock’s Polite Repository, arranged by year.
The garden rare book collection is both a unique tool for historical inquiry and a testimony to the enduring human delight in gardens and garden creation, which is, as Sir Francis Bacon wrote, “the Purest of Humane pleasures.” It was a claim echoed by Mrs. Bliss, whose testimony to the value of gardens and scholarship is inscribed upon the exterior walls of her library.
Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives
The Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives hold more than 500,000 images in a variety of formats, the majority of which are of Byzantine subject matter. Photographs and archival collections supporting pre-Columbian and garden and landscape studies are being developed.Gardens
In 1921, the Blisses hired landscape gardener Beatrix FarrandBeatrix Farrand
Beatrix Jones Farrand was a landscape gardener and landscape architect in the United States. Her career included commissions to design the gardens for private residences, estates and country homes, public parks, botanic gardens, college campuses, and the White House.Farrand was one of the founding...
to design the gardens at Dumbarton Oaks, and for almost thirty years Mildred Bliss collaborated closely with Farrand. Together they transformed the existing farmlands surrounding the house into terraced garden rooms and vistas, creating a garden landscape that progressed from formal and elegant stepped terraces, in the near vicinity of the house, to a more recreational and practical middle zone of pools, tennis court, orchards, vegetable beds, and cutting gardens, and concluding at the far reaches of the property with a rustic wilderness of meadows and stream. Within the garden rooms, Bliss and Farrand used a careful selection of plant materials and garden ornaments to define the rooms’ character and use. Since that time, other architects working with Mildred Bliss—most notably Ruth Havey and Alden Hopkins—changed certain elements of the Farrand design. The gardens at Dumbarton Oaks were first opened to the public in 1939.
The Dumbarton Oaks Park
Dumbarton Oaks Park
The Dunbarton Oaks Park is a public park, located in the 3100 block of R Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Georgetown neighborhood. Access is via...
is a 27 acre naturalistic streamside valley park, maintained as a part of Rock Creek Park
Rock Creek Park
Rock Creek Park is a large urban natural area with public park facilities that bisects Washington, D.C. The park is administered by the National Park Service.-Rock Creek Park:The main section of the park contains , or , along the Rock Creek Valley...
.
Friends of Music at Dumbarton Oaks
In 1946, Dumbarton Oaks inaugurated the Friends of Music concerts to offer a yearly chamber music subscription series in the music room. This series was based on the similar Friends of Music at the Library of Congress, of which Mildred Bliss was a long-time member. In 1958, Dumbarton Oaks commissioned Aaron CoplandAaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
(1900–1990) to compose Nonet for Solo Strings (generally known as Nonet for Strings) in honor of the Blisses’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. Nadia Boulanger conducted its world premier with nine members of the National Symphony Orchestra on March 2, 1961. Copland dedicated the piece “to Nadia Boulanger after forty years of friendship.” In 2006, Dumbarton Oaks commissioned Joan Tower
Joan Tower
Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by the New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world...
to compose Dumbarton Quintet, which was premiered in the music room on April 12, 2008, with the composer at the piano.
Public Lectures
Public lectures are offered regularly, held in the Music Room. The lectures are noted for presenting recent discoveries or innovative scholarship that commands public interest.Directors of Dumbarton Oaks
- John Seymour Thacher, Acting Director, 1945, Director, 1946–1969
- William R. TylerWilliam R. TylerWilliam R. Tyler was a United States diplomat.-Biography:William R. Tyler was born in Paris in 1910. His father was an American and his mother was an Italian, Countess Elisina de Castelvecchio...
, 1969–1977 - Giles Constable, 1977–1984
- Robert W. ThomsonRobert W. ThomsonRobert William Thomson is retired Calouste Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian Studies at Oxford University.When an Armenian Studies Professorship was established in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the Harvard University in 1969, Thomson was appointed to the chair which was subsequently named in...
, 1984–1989 - Angeliki LaiouAngeliki Laiou- Life :Laiou was born in Athens on 6 April 1941 to a Pontic family, refugees from the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey. She studied at the Athens College and continued her studies in the Philosophy School of the University of Athens , where she studied under the Greek Byzantinist Dionysios...
, 1989–1998 - Edward L. KeenanEdward L. KeenanEdward L. Keenan is Andrew W. Mellon professor emeritus of history at Harvard University. He works primarily on medieval Russia, especially the cultural and political history of Muscovy c. 1400 - c...
, 1998–2007 - Jan M. ZiolkowskiJan M. ZiolkowskiJan Ziolkowski is the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University and Director of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. His scholarship has focused on the literature of the Latin Middle Ages.-Career:...
, 2007–present