At Tudor Place: New Executive Director, New Exhibition
By • January 28, 2026 0 318
What’s new at Georgetown’s Tudor Place?
The exhibition “Founding Fortunes: The Estate Sale of Martha Washington,” opening on Tuesday, Feb. 10, and Executive Director Mary-Frances Wain, who started this month.
“Estate sales are certainly having a moment, here in Georgetown and frankly everywhere, and this is a fascinating and unprecedented presentation of the epic estate sale that was foundational to Tudor Place as we know it,” stated Wain, clearly excited to take the reins as the nation’s 250th anniversary year begins.
“Our expert curatorial team has unearthed new, never-before-seen records and artifacts that help tell an even fuller story of the ‘First Family,’ of our country at that time, of generational wealth and the capacity of excluded communities to claim power,” she added. (More about Wain below.)
Martha Parke Custis Peter, who with her husband Thomas Peter acquired the Georgetown property in 1805, was Martha Washington’s granddaughter. The couple hired William Thornton, architect of the Capitol, to design their neoclassical home, completed in 1816. On five-and-a-half acres at 1644 31st St. NW, Tudor Place Historic House & Garden opened to the public in 1988.
A gold locket from 1810 containing locks of George and Martha Washington’s hair. Courtesy Tudor Place.
When Martha Washington died in 1802 at age 80, whatever possessions she did not bequeath were to be sold. Tudor Place owns two copies of the estate sale record, one more detailed, in Thomas Peter’s hand. Though these fragile, multipage documents won’t leave the archives, exhibition labels will provide excerpts, including the price a surviving object sold for.
Of special interest: two bodices — fitted upper-body garments — that belonged to Martha, due to come back after conservation treatment in Massachusetts. (Only one may be on view at a time.)
Another highlight is a rare wax tableau made in the 1780s by Manhattan tavern keeper Samuel Fraunces. Off display for at least 20 years, the piece depicts a scene from “The Iliad” in which Trojan warrior Hector bids his family farewell. Fraunces “thought that related to George Washington,” said Tudor Place Curator Rob DeHart.
The Peters acquired six Revolutionary War camp stools from the sale, per DeHart, but “we only have one left.” Among the other objects to be displayed: a patterned cushion woven and stitched by Martha, an engraving of John Trumbull’s portrait of George from Mount Vernon and a gold locket from 1810 that holds locks of George’s and Martha’s hair.
George was a redhead in his younger years and Tudor Place has “a lot of his hair,” according to DeHart. “Some of it is in jewelry, some of it is just wrapped up in envelopes.” Commenting that the Peters bought things “to help elevate their status in D.C.,” he noted that “objects from the estate sale solidified their connection” to the original first couple.
“This is a new thing for Tudor Place,” DeHart said. To install the exhibition, staff members “totally cleared out the center block of the property,” which hadn’t been empty since 1933.
On view Tuesday to Sunday through the end of 2026, “Founding Fortunes” is a self-guided experience with timed entry (first at 10 a.m., last at 3 p.m.). The suggested donation is $10 for adults and $5 for seniors, students, military and ages 6 to 18.
On Saturday, Feb. 7, as part of a First Saturday event at the National Gallery of Art, DeHart will give a 1 p.m. talk about Edward Savage’s painting “The Washington Family.” There will also be free family activities from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“The Washington Family” won’t relocate to Tudor Place — “It’s a huge, massive piece,” said DeHart — but the elaborate painting, portraying five individuals at Mount Vernon, is a revealing lead-in to the “Founding Families” story.
Everyone knows the Father of Our Country was childless, so who are those children? A young woman stands next to white-capped Martha and George rests his creepy-looking right hand (Savage was mostly self-taught) on a boy’s shoulder.
The “Hector” figure from a wax tableau made by Manhattan tavern keeper Samuel Fraunces as a gift to George Washington. Courtesy Tudor Place.
Both with long, loose hair, they are two of Martha’s four grandchildren, named not Washington but Custis: Eleanor Parke Custis, later Lewis, who went by Nelly; and George Washington Parke Custis, called (at least at that age) Washy. After the death of their father, Martha’s son John Parke Custis, their mother, Eleanor Calvert Custis, sent them to be raised by the Washingtons.
The fifth figure, standing behind Martha at far right, is a Black man in a pinkish vest, possibly enslaved attendant Christopher Sheels. “There’s still a lot of debate about who that person was,” said DeHart.
Though the first president’s will, written in 1799, the year he died, specified that “his” 123 enslaved workers at Mount Vernon would be emancipated following Martha’s death (Martha signed a deed for their manumission a year later), this did not affect the 153 others Martha had inherited from her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis.
“When Martha Washington died, it also set in motion the splitting of the [remaining] enslaved community,” explained DeHart. A quarter went to each Custis grandchild, including Tudor Place’s Martha Parke Custis Peter.
“Slavery is woven all through the exhibit,” said DeHart. Calling that effort “important,” he referenced the National Park Service’s recent removal of outdoor panels on slavery at the President’s House site in Philadelphia. Tudor Place’s inclusive approach builds on its 2024 installation and guided tour “Ancestral Spaces: People of African Descent at Tudor Place.”
A page from one of the documents listing items purchased at Martha Washington’s 1802 estate sale. Courtesy Tudor Place.
A team of scholars from Mount Vernon and George Washington University and a separate team of descendants, both white and Black, and other stakeholders helped to conceive “Founding Fortunes” and provided input. One surprising discovery was that enslaved men and women had purchased items at the estate sale, such as a bed, a tea kettle and fireplace utensils.
Wain, most recently president and CEO of MPower Partners, a consulting firm for nonprofit organizations, boards and executives, said she is “drawn to organizations that center underrepresented communities, voices and lived experiences. I am driven to build a world where every person has the opportunity and the agency to realize their full potential.”
A graduate of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, Wain was chief engagement officer at Prosperity Now, which focuses on the root causes of economic barriers to opportunity, from 2020 to 2024. Earlier, she held positions with the National Women’s Law Center, the United Nations Foundation, the United Nations Association of the USA, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the National Museum of Women in the Arts and Suited for Change. She succeeds Mark Hudson, who left Tudor Place last spring.
“From tenures in direct service, to the arts, to social justice advocacy, what has been consistent is my strong belief in the transformative power of storytelling. To me, this is a quintessential element of the human condition,” she said. “Storytelling is how we share and preserve our histories, it is how we better understand ourselves and others, it is the way we find common ground, even in times and places where that doesn’t seem possible.”
Other America 250 programming at Tudor Place will include: Landmark Lectures, next on March 10; tea-and-tour events, next on March 14; and Coffee House Conversations, next on March 19. Eggstravaganza! will be on March 27 and 28 and the Tudor Place Garden Party on May 20.
“Georgetown has been a consistent part of my D.C. story,” said Wain, who has lived in Washington for 34 years. “Professionally, one of my early positions was with the National Museum of Women in the Arts and I spent a lot of time working from founder Wilhelmina Holladay’s home office on R Street. Dumbarton Oaks hosted the crucial conversations that led to the United Nations charter, and I had the pleasure of advancing this work during my tenure at the UN Foundation.
“Personally, Georgetown has hosted many family-and-friend celebrations, from birthday and anniversary dinners to spa days with my besties, cheering on my son and his friends at Jelleff basketball games and getting wedding-day glam with my mother and sister … and then walking right into a movie shoot on P Street!”
