http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/arts-post\/post\/george-washingtons-dishy-letter-about-pierre-charles-lenfant-is-coming-home\/2012\/12\/10\/65a88aa8-42f2-11e2-9648-a2c323a991d6_blog.html?hpid=z11<\/a><\/p>\n————————-<\/p>\n
Christie\u2019s to auction letter detailing George Washington\u2019s impressions of L\u2019Enfant<\/h2>\n
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CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2012 – George Washington’s autographed letter to David Stuart, dated Nov. 30, 1792.<\/p>\n
He was a visionary.<\/p>\n
And he was a pain in the neck.<\/p>\n
Both impressions of L\u2019Enfant, the man responsible for designing much of Washington, leap off the yellowed pages of a 220-year-old letter set to be auctioned Friday in New York by Christie\u2019s. It is written in the unmistakable hand of George Washington, two pages of exquisitely shaped script tilting hard to the right, as if some unseen force was trying to flatten each word.<\/p>\n
By the time Washington put quill to paper on that 30th day of November 1792, L\u2019Enfant was already a source of controversy. Even though he\u2019d drafted an impressive plan for the federal city, he\u2019d been shoved aside amid bickering with the commission established to oversee construction.<\/p>\n
Washington addressed his letter to David Stuart, one of three members of the commission. The first president tells Stuart that this is a \u201cprivate\u201d communication, even underlining the word, so that he may speak \u201cmore freely.\u201d That his private musings would, inevitably, become public is evidence of that present-day truism of the town they\u2019d make together \u2014 nothing that gets written down stays secret!<\/p>\n
In the letter, Washington nudges Stuart to get on with the task of selecting a capital architect to move along the much-delayed project, preferably a man of \u201cfertile genius & comprehensive ideas.\u201d That\u2019s when the letter gets dishy.<\/p>\n
Washington, as if thinking aloud, tells Stuart that L\u2019Enfant might be a good candidate \u2014 \u201cif he could have been restrained within proper bounds and his temper was less untoward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meow.<\/p>\n
But Washington then pivots, noting that L\u2019Enfant is \u201cthe only person with whose turn to matters of this sort I am acquainted, that I think fit for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
There, in the space of a few words, Washington disses and praises L\u2019Enfant. He\u2019s a bad, bad boy, but he might be the best man for the job.<\/p>\n
Chris Coover, a senior specialist in rare books and manuscripts at Christie\u2019s, reads in the letter an American president \u201cconflicted\u201d over the designing genius. Impressed with his work, annoyed by his temperament, for, after all, L\u2019Enfant was \u201cvery arrogant .?.?. very full of himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can read his anxiety,\u201d Coover says of Washington. In his cautiously worded way, Washington seems to be expressing \u201cregret\u201d that L\u2019Enfant wasn\u2019t in charge anymore, Coover says.<\/p>\n
But Coover sees other narratives laced into the text. Not just a president peeved by an architect, but a president fed up with process. An early case of capital gridlock.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you read between the lines, you can tell he\u2019s frustrated that the work has stalled,\u201d Coover says.<\/p>\n
Christie\u2019s can\u2019t trace the provenance of the letter back to Washington. Somewhere along the way, it became the property of collectors, but it hasn\u2019t been sold for decades, Coover says.<\/p>\n
Instead, it has been one of those treasures, quietly held by a collector in New York, a gatherer of old things whose name is not being disclosed.<\/p>\n
The letter is expected to go for as much as $400,000. The seller, Coover says, parts with it amid \u201cmixed feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Link:<\/strong> http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/christies-to-auction-letter-detailing-george-washingtons-impressions-of-lenfant\/2012\/12\/06\/dcf97ef2-3fcb-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_story.html<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Posted at 12:59 PM ET, 12\/10\/2012 Dec 10, 2012 05:59 PM EST The Washington Post By Manuel Roig-Franzia George Washington\u2019s dishy letter about Pierre Charles L\u2019Enfant is coming home. George Washington University revealed Monday that Albert H. Small, who is a native Washingtonian and a big local real estate developer, bought the 220-year-old letter at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1278,8,160,58,171,20,227,56,180,181],"tags":[1280,152,156],"class_list":["post-5783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-culture","category-diplomatie","category-french-american-relations","category-histoire","category-leadership","category-made-in-france","category-mdfde-2","category-ministere-des-affaires-etrangeres","category-obama-2012","tag-lenfant","tag-the-united-states-of-america","tag-washington-d-c"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.francaisdeletranger.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.francaisdeletranger.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.francaisdeletranger.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.francaisdeletranger.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.francaisdeletranger.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.francaisdeletranger.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.francaisdeletranger.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.francaisdeletranger.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.francaisdeletranger.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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