Grey Towers National Historic Site

Cornelia overcame the removal of a load bearing wall and converted the dining room and breakfast room into one large Sitting Room, painted with wild greens and filled with nautical themes

A pair of camels from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) are the oldest pieces in the house. They are terra cotta with a hand-painted glaze and are on loan from the Pinchot family.

The mural adorning the south wall of the Sitting Room was painted by N.H. Penning in 1799. It hung in the Netherlands in The Hague and was installed at Grey Towers in the 1920s. The canvas is mounted directly onto the plaster and framed with an ornate trompe l'oeil frame. Trompe l'oeil, translated as "to fool the eye", is a painting technique used extensively in the Sitting Room to give a 3-D effect.

And now on to the "Dining Room" . . .