Lot 164E email save

WASHINGTON, George. ALS on decorating Mt. Veron 1

Sign In to see what this sold for

Mt. Vernon: 18 August 1786. 1 p., folded sheet with integral address leaf (230 x 180 mm). Additionally signed on the address leaf. Condition: minor staining, usual folds, hole to address leaf from opening of wax seal. washington decorates his mount vernon dining room. At the time of this letter, Biddle (1740-1814) worked at his family's import/export business in Philadelphia. During the American Revolution, however, he served as Deputy Quartermaster General and as Washington's Commissary General at Valley Forge, and Washington here addresses him with his rank as Colonel. Washington corresponded with Biddle several times over the course of the summer of 1786 (the text of each recorded in his letterbooks). In this letter, he writes to inform the merchant that he has sent curtains to be dyed green: "This letter serves to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of the 13th inst. and to inform you that I have, this day, sent a small box to Alexandria to go either by the Packet, or some other conveyance to Philadelphia to your address. It contains two window curtains which I pray you to get new dyed of the same colour (green) and return them to me as soon as may be. I am obliged by your care of my letters; and thank you for the attention paid to the other requests of my former letter." The curtains were no doubt for Mount Vernon's first floor dining room, whose plaster ornamentation and green color were selected by Washington himself. The largest room in Mount Vernon, it was within the walls of that room that Washington was informed that he had been elected the first President of the United States and in that room that his body would lie in state following his death. The letter continues concerning the price of leather: "The price of Mr. Howells leather is not cheaper than it is sold for in Alexandria, and the freight would make it come higher." Interestingly, in the letter from Washington to Biddle prior to this one dated 30 July 1786, Washington had inquired of Biddle as to the price of leather and specified that it was for "negroes shoes."

View Bloomsbury Auctions next auction.

Similar lots up for auction