Baseboard at Bernard Gequierre House, Pantry

This cross-section from a baseboard in the pantry of the Bernard Ghequiere House (c.1797) in Alexandria, Virginia provides insight into the use and treatment of eighteenth-century service areas.
Rarely surviving, pantries and service areas are seldom treated to the same degree of investigation as high-end interiors. The paint history of the Ghequiere House pantry is a compelling image that reveals its use and treatment over many decades. The disruption of the earliest paint layers, such as the cracking and numerous breaks between colors, tells us this was a space of frequent use and activity. The dark layers of trapped grime further attest to this and reveal that the painters generally did not clean, sand, or patch the surfaces in this room before repainting. The predominance of earth-toned colors also suggests more affordable, mineral-based paints were selected for this service area. Ironically, this combination of use, dirt, and neglect contributes to the creation of a visually arresting and dynamic cross-section.
The paints on the woodwork and plaster in the grand entertaining rooms and modest secondary spaces of the privately owned Ghequiere House were analyzed in three different phases to guide an extensive restoration. The woodwork in a number of the rooms retained as many as 24 generations of paint in varying conditions. A number of woodwork cross-sections from the secondary spaces reveal films of dirt and soot trapped between the paints and varnishes. In the public entertaining rooms, where the earliest colors were more subtle and elegant, evidence shows that the woodwork was cleaned on a more regular basis.