Designed in 1932, the gates between the Green Garden and Beech Terrace are constructed from wrought iron. These gates were created in the image of designs requested from Parisian designer Armand Albert Rateau by Beatrix Farrand in 1929. The Blisses had hired Rateau to reproduce a French Renaissance ceiling and floor for the Dumbarton Oaks Music Room (commissioned in 1926 and completed in 1928), and they were fans of his work. Farrand sent Rateau photographs of the Green Garden with specific locations for the ornamentations as well as meter sticks indicating the scale of the desired designs. Rateau submitted detail and panoramic drawings for the gates which were not necessarily immediately approved of by Mildred Bliss, though his proposals are marked with a “W,” indicating her acceptance of the designs and perhaps an instruction to Farrand to begin work on the details. The following year, Farrand’s office completed ornamentation designs for the Green Garden gates which closely mirror those proposed by Rateau for the room. In 1994, Greg Campbell cast a reproduction of two leaves, new rosettes, and tendrils on the gates at Black Rose Forge in Rockville, Maryland.
Image: Beatrix Farrand, Cresting for second Green Garden gate, for Robert W. Bliss Esq., at Washington D.C., 1932. Garden Archives, LA-GD-H-3-19.
More Exhibit Items
