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The windows in the room are adorned with heavy, hand-dyed damask draperies. Two plush doughnut-shaped couches, called poufs, provide seating. Poufs were very popular in the Victorian era, for keeping wallflowers away from the walls, I guess. In the center of each pouf sits an enormous vase, decorated with eagles, cannon and flags — centennial gifts from France to the United States. Entering the Grand Salon is like stepping into the opulent gallery of a Victorian collector.
Inside and out, the whole building smacks of that gaudy era of superficial grandeur, the pomp and bluster of nouveau riche entrepreneurs. The exterior once was festooned with 11 seven-foot-tall marble statues, "great figures of art," sculpted by one Moses Ezekiel of Virginia. They were established in niches along the facade and sides of the building's second floor. The "great figures" were Phidias, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Raphael, Dürer, Titian, Da Vinci, Murillo, Canova and one American, Thomas Crawford, who designed the statue on the Capitol dome, the bronze doors of the Senate wing and several other local fixtures.
William Wilson Corcoran, a very prosperous Washington banker and philanthropist, commissioned the gallery in 1858 to house his collection of paintings and sculptures. Corcoran took the architect, James Renwick, Jr., to Europe with him to search out likely models for the building, and they both fell in love with the Tuileries addition to the Louvre. Renwick Americanized the French Renaissance design by substituting ears of corn and tobacco leaves for the traditional acanthus leaves atop the columns. The building was Washington's first public art gallery.
No sooner was the gallery finished than the Civil War began. On August 22, 1861, the Union Army seized the building to use as a uniforms and records warehouse. Not until 1869, well after the war's end, did the U.S. government return the place to Corcoran, who promptly sued for his back rent. After a $250,000 restoration, the building opened as an art gallery in 1874.
Corcoran, a Southern sympathizer, had sat out the Civil War in Europe and felt the need to reinstate himself with the local society. He decided to hold a great benefit ball to raise money to complete the Washington Monument, stalled at about one-third its planned height since the 1850s for lack of funds.
It was a great ball, all right. Hoping to add bright color and song to the festivities, cages of canaries were hung from the 40-foot ceiling of the Grand Salon. But the canaries were too near the gas jets that were used to light the room, and the birds all died as haute Washington chattered and clinked glasses beneath them. The affair cost so much that it never did produce any net profits.
The Great Hall of Sculpture, which once graced the first floor, was crowded with plaster-cast copies of statues — Greco-Roman nudes for the most part. Respectful of Victorian sensibilities, the hall had separate visiting hours for men and women. On one occasion, when Hiram Power's female nude, The Greek Slave, was exhibited at the museum before a mixed audience, it caused a scandal, Bassing told me during my recent visit. Washington was aghast: ministers thundered from pulpits, readers wrote furious letters to the local newspaper.
I asked Bassing if the building had ghosts or spirits, figures you might see flitting from the room out of the corner of your eye. The closest he could come was a wake.
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