DUMBARTON OAKS

Dumbarton Oaks is an historical estate in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Oaks was the residence of Robert Woods Bliss and his wife Mildred Barnes Bliss.

History of Dumbarton Oaks

The land of Dumbarton Oaks was formerly part of the rock of Dumbarton grant that Queen Anne made in 1702 to Colonel Nanian Beall.

William Hammond Dorsey was the first person to build house on the property whilst in the mid – nineteenth century, Edward Magruder Linthicum enlarged the residence and named it the oaks.

Shortly in 1920, the Blisses acquired the properties and renamed it to Dumbarton Oaks, combining its two historic names.

In 1941, the administrative structure of Dumbarton is Oaks, it is now owned by Harvard University. And it was structure according to the following design: the Trustees for Harvard University, composed primarily of the president and fellows of Harvard College, 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.

Claim to Fame

Dumbarton Oaks were credited in 1956 for as the first fellowship in landscape architecture under the provisions of the Dumbarton Oaks Garden Endowment Fund established in 1951 by the Blisses.

The course garden and landscape studies was however, inaugurated in 1972 to support the study of gardens and the history of landscape architecture form the ancient time to the present across the world.

Features of Dumbarton Oaks Museum

The museum features collections of Byzantine and Pre – Columbian art, European artworks and furnishings. The Blisses championed the collections in 1900s and provided the vision for the future acquisitions even after giving Dumbarton Oaks to Harvard University.

Byzantine collections span the imperial, ecclesiastical, and secular realms comprises more than 1,200 objects from the fourth to the fifth centuries. The collections include mosaics arts from Antioch and relief sculpture, as well as more than than two hundred textiles and comprehensive holdings of coins and zeals.

While that of pre – Columbian Art comprises objects from the old cultures of Mesoamerica, the intermediate Area, and the Andes.

The research Centre and library of the Dumbarton Oaks was founded by the Bliss couple, who gave the property to Harvard University in 1940. The library contains more 200,000 items that the three studies programs.

The research institute objective was actually to support scholarship in the fields of Byzantine and Pre – Columbian studies, as well as garden design and landscape architecture though its fellowship, exhibition and meeting programme.

The museum has been the conference Centre for diplomatic meetings. in the early fall of 1944, Washington conversations on “ international peace and security organizations” was held at Dumbarton Oaks by delegates from China, United kingdom, united states and soviet union.

Not only does the Dumbarton Oaks use as research Centre and conference room but public lectures on recent discoveries or innovative scholarship that are of public interest are also regularly held in the Oaks room of the fellowship House.

Please see the next attraction-The National Gallery