Napkin
This linen damask napkin is but one of the large quantity that were once used by guests at presidential dinners in New York and Philadelphia and private entertainments at Mount Vernon with the retired president. The laundry mark at the corner - "1/ GW/ 48" - indicates that it was among a set of forty-eight owned by George Washington. Enslaved laundresses at Mount Vernon washed, bleached, and pressed linens such as this to maintain the items’ cleanliness and luxuriant lustre.