The event will be in English.

Doors will open at 6:30pm.

There will be a reception after the event.

About the Event:

The arrival in Washington of Citizen Louis-André Pichon (1772–1845) and his bride of three months, Alexandrine-Émilie Brongniart (1780–1847), in March, 1801, was a great moment in the history of Franco-American relations. Having been personally chosen by First Consul Napoléon Bonaparte to represent France to the United States under its new president, Thomas Jefferson, André was charged with repairing bilateral relations that had been damaged in the early years of the American republic. Ultimately, André would play a leading role in the Louisiana Purchase that expanded the territory of the United States west of the Mississippi. 

This presentation tells the story of André’s and Émilie’s personal and social life in Washington and Georgetown through a study of the four places where they lived: a boarding house on Capitol Hill, two elegant homes in Georgetown, and a large townhouse near the White House. Thanks to Émilie’s detailed letters to her family in France, which have been carefully preserved by her descendants in France and generously made available to the speaker, we have intimate and detailed insight into their daily life, the interior décor and amenities of their homes, their relationship with domestic workers, the foods they ate and drank, and what they missed most about their life in Paris.

This presentation will include many vivid historic and modern illustrations, maps, and photographs that make the story of Émilie and André in Washington come alive for modern audiences. It will include the first-ever visual reconstruction of their elegant three-story, late-Federal-style mansion on M Street in Georgetown—a structure that is still standing, though its once prominent place in the history of the national capital has been long forgotten.

About the Speaker:

Skip Moskey is an independent scholar who researches and writes primarily about notable Americans of the long nineteenth century who were connected to the history of art, architecture, or politics in Washington, D.C. His subjects have included Isabel Weld Perkins Anderson and her husband Larz Anderson, Elizabeth Coles Kilgour Anderson, Theodore Frelinghuysen Dwight, Edward Hamlin Everett, S. Dillon Ripley, and Woodrow Wilson. Recent work includes editing the Letters of Mrs. Nicholas Longworth Anderson to her Son Larz Anderson 1882-1916, and the co-authored article “From Zuni to Dupont Circle: Isabel and Larz Anderson’s Native American Collection” published in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide in 2023. He has lectured at the Boston Athenaeum, Belgian Council of State, Victorian Society in America, American Library in Paris, Rochambeau Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Paris), The Society of the Cincinnati, and Woodrow Wilson House. He holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from Georgetown University and is a member of The Association of Oldest Inhabitants of D.C., Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, and Alliance Française of Washington.

To learn more about the speaker's previous works:

1. Letters of Mrs. Nicholas Longworth Anderson to her Son Larz Anderson 1882-1916

2. “From Zuni to Dupont Circle: Isabel and Larz Anderson’s Native American Collection”

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