Houston Community News >> 2007 Bayou Bend Collection Yuletide Celebrating Holiday Heroines, Nov. 17-Dec. 30

10/31/2007 Houston-- Extraordinary women from three centuries are celebrated during the 2007 Yuletide event at Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, the MFAH house museum at 1 Westcott Street at Memorial Drive. The central figure in Yuletide’s Holiday Heroines is Houston philanthropist Miss Ima Hogg, who lived at Bayou Bend from 1928 to 1957, when she gave the estate to the museum. This year marks the 50th anniversary of her gift and her presence is felt in three of the eight rooms specially decorated for the season. Keeping her company in spirit are Dolley Madison, wife of President James Madison; Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin; poet Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American woman to earn a living as a writer; 18th-century shopkeeper Elizabeth Murray; and Sarah Kemble Knight, who defied social norms by traveling alone in 1704.

Christmas Tree at Bayou Bend in Houston


The historical scenes recreated for Holiday Heroines, on view from November 17 through December 30, 2007, feature period furniture and props, holiday greenery, and fabulous faux food and drink. An 8 ½ -foot Christmas tree twinkling with hundreds of ornaments commands attention in Bayou Bend’s garland-trimmed grand hall. A variety of Yuletide tour options are available, including three Candlelight Open House evenings, docent-led tours, audio tours, and Family Day self-guided tours. Admission ranges from free to $10. Visit www.mfah.org/bayoubend for a day-by-day schedule of tour options.

Now the center for the MFAH’s American decorative arts collection, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens showcases decorative arts and paintings from the earliest colonial times through the Rococo revival in the mid-1870s. The historical vignettes created for Yuletide are set against the backdrop of the exceptional furniture, paintings, ceramics, and silver that comprise the Bayou Bend Collection, and are enhanced by the addition of period table settings, decorations, textiles, and other rarely seen furnishings from the collection.

To get to the historic house, Yuletide visitors first enter the gardens of the 14-acre estate by crossing a footbridge over Buffalo Bayou. There, holiday landscaping includes seasonal plantings of poinsettias and pansies. Other highlights include several evergreen garden settings and displays of rare camellias in bloom.
During the Candlelight Open House nights on November 23 and 30, and December 7, docents will be stationed in each room to discuss the holiday settings and the customs of the times that inspired Holiday Heroines. Period music and the soft light of candles enhance the experience.
Other visiting opportunities include a free Family Day, Seasonal Splendor, on Sunday, December 16. Guests can play children’s games, make holiday ornaments, and take self-guided tours of the decorated rooms. Local community groups will provide holiday music. (On Sunday, November 18, a free Thanksgiving-themed Bayou Bend Family Day includes tours of the Yuletide rooms.)

Bayou Bend is closed Mondays and will be closed for the installation of Yuletide decorations Tuesday, and Wednesday, November 13 and 14, and for the removal of the decorations, on Wednesday and Thursday, January 2 and 3.

Holiday Room Settings
The central rooms of Bayou Bend, Philadelphia Hall, the Drawing Room, and the Dining Room each reflect Miss Hogg’s decorating and entertaining interests in the 1940s. Although the Christmas tree in Philadelphia Hall is a recent addition for the holidays, the elegant space is decorated for the season as Miss Hogg often did with lavish greenery and fruit, and a display of her creche. As a founder of the Houston Symphony, Miss Hogg frequently entertained musical performers. An early 1946 visit from Alfred Mirovitch, pianist and Liszt scholar, is replicated in the Drawing Room. At that time, Miss Hogg’s grand piano, complete with piano shawl, co-existed with her antiques. Across the hall, in the Dining Room, a typical dinner held by Miss Hogg in the 1940s is reproduced. The meal served on the English dining table is over, and finger bowls have been presented prior to the dessert. In a rare burst of sentimentality, Miss Hogg never replaced the table with an American one because she had had so many wonderful dinners around it.

Dolley Madison, wife of the fourth president, James Madison, may be best known for saving George Washington’s portrait from the burning White House during the War of 1812, but one of her great skills was entertaining to the political benefit of her husband. The Chillman Suite replicates an open house on January 1, 1810, when the Oval Room (later known as the Blue Room) debuted with new decorations by Benjamin Latrobe. Latrobe designed two of the chairs in the Chillman Suite. Light refreshments—punch, wine, coffee, tea, nuts, cake, fruit, ice cream—are offered to the guests on red japanned trays bought by Latrobe. Other guests play loo, a card game beloved by Dolley.

Harriet Beecher Stowe became internationally famous because of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the second best-selling book of the 19th century after the Bible. According to legend, President Lincoln told her at a meeting in 1862, “So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this Great War!” The Belter Parlor shows Stowe doing a reading of her book.

In the 1760s, the family of John Wheatley of Boston discovered that their young slave girl, Phillis, was an exceptional child. The Wheatleys’ daughter taught Phillis how to read the Bible, and then English, Latin, and the Greek classics, and soon Phillis began writing poetry. Her first book of poetry was published in England in 1773, as no American publisher was willing to take it on. The Massachusetts Room shows the comfort in which Phillis lived in the Wheatley household, with a mahogany card table as her desk. The other half of the room shows the arrival of the newly published books from England.

English immigrant Elizabeth Murray, age 22, set herself up as a shopkeeper in Boston in 1750. Although Murray was one of several women shopkeepers at the time, they were objects of ridicule and satire to Bostonians of the mid-18th century. One of the few shopkeepers to advertise frequently, Murray received enough trade that she was able to import the latest London fashions—just what Bostonians wanted. The Pine Room is treated as a recreation of her shop, where Murray also taught needlework.

In October 1704, Sarah Kemble Knight made the 200-mile trip from Boston to New York by herself, an extraordinary feat for a woman. The Murphy Room is set to show a typical spot where she spent the night during her journey. When a crowd of drunken men kept her awake one evening, she composed a poem “I ask thy Aid, O Potent Rum! To Charm these wrangling Topers Dum.”

Sponsorship
Education programs at Bayou Bend receive generous funding from the Susan Vaughan Foundation, Houston Junior Woman’s Club, The Frill Foundation, the James W. Glanville Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Jerry McCleskey, and the Julia and Albert Smith Foundation.

Background Information
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens is the American decorative arts center of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Housed in the former residence of the late Houston philanthropist and collector Miss Ima Hogg, the collection is displayed in more than 20 room settings that trace the evolution of style in America from the colonial period to the mid-nineteenth century. One of the nation’s premier holdings of American art and antiques, the collection comprises more than 5,000 works, including furniture, paintings, metals, ceramics, glass, and textiles.

General Information For more information, the public may call 713-639-7750 or visit www.mfah.org/bayoubend.