Entry Hall
Enter this grand two-story entry hall and receive the impressive welcome designed for friends, diplomats, socialites, politicians, and other worldly guests of Marjorie Merriweather Post.
A Grand Entrance
Here, exquisite furnishings and objects introduce the dual interests that guided Post’s passion for collecting: the decorative and fine arts of 18th-century France and imperial Russia.
Climb the regal staircase with its French wrought-iron and gilt-bronze railing and encounter the Russian monarchy as tsars and tsarinas gaze from the many portraits that line the way, revealing Post’s interest in royalty.
My two major interests have been the art of eighteenth-century France and that of imperial Russia… It seems quite natural that these two artistic expressions should be brought together [in the entrance hall].
Marjorie Merriweather Post
Catherine the Great fascinated Marjorie Merriweather Post. Catherine was seen as a self-declared “defender of the arts and sciences” andcredited with modernizing Russia. A powerful full-length portrait of her presides over the Entry Hall stairway.
Along the faux-stone walls flanking the Library, Post’s discerning taste for the superbly-crafted furnishings of 18th-century France are introduced in two commodes, or chests of drawers, by German-born Jean-Henri Riesener, official cabinetmaker to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
Above it all hangs a dazzling and rare French rock crystal chandelier believed once to have hung in Russia’s Gatchina Palace, illustrating Post’s two-fold passions while it illuminates the space.
