The Hammond-Harwood House staff decided that we (and our wonderful docents of course) needed a day out of the office, so on Monday we took a field trip into Washington, DC. Curator Emeritus Ellen Miles was nice enough to give us a tour of the “Capital Portraits: Treasures from Washington Private Collections” exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which she and Carolyn Kinder Carr co-curated. The exhibit was unbelievable, with a breathtaking selection of rarely-seen portraits from the 18th through the 21st centuries pulled solely from private collections in the DC area. The exhibit will be open until September 5 and you can find more information, and a sample of the portraits on view, here. This show should not be missed if you are at all interested in portraiture, or in marveling at what size home someone must have in order to accommodate a twelve-foot-tall painting.
