When he first sat for Stuart, President George Washington (1733–1799) was sixty-three years old and near the end of his second term of office. Stuart subscribed to prevailing theories about physiognomy, which held that a study of the outward body could reveal a person's inner qualities. It took all of Stuart's colloquial powers to engage Washington in conversation so his face would move and Stuart could fathom the president's character, or personality. His portraits of Washington were a success from the start.

The examples shown in this gallery meet strict criteria: they are of impeccable quality and they are fully documented, authentic works by Stuart with provenances directly from their original owners. This exhibition is the very first time the artist's portraits of Washington are together for comparative study.

On April 20, 1795, Stuart compiled a list of the names of thirty-two men who had commissioned a total of thirty-nine portraits of President Washington at a price of one hundred dollars each. The presence on the list of names of patrons in London and New York indicates that Stuart already had commissions for portraits of Washington before he went to Philadelphia. The portrait that resulted from his first sitting with the president is known as the Vaughan portrait because one version, long thought to be the first of the type, was commissioned by the merchant John Vaughan for his father, Samuel. Stuart made between twelve and sixteen replicas of this image within a relatively short time in 1795, painting more than one at a time. According to his own notation, he himself destroyed the life portrait.

About 1796, Martha Custis Washington (1731–1802) commissioned Stuart to paint a pair of portraits of herself and her husband for Mount Vernon. Stuart completed only the heads and kept the unfinished portraits in his studio for the rest of his life. He believed that this second portrait was a more successful representation of Washington than the Vaughan image. Stuart made approximately seventy-five replicas of this portrait, each showing Washington in a black velvet suit and a white shirt with a ruffle of lace or linen. After Stuart's death in 1828, a group of men purchased the unfinished portraits of George and Martha Washington and gave them to the Boston Athenaeum; hence they are known as the Athenaeum portraits. Many other artists have subsequently copied the image of the president. It is the portrait engraved on the United States one-dollar bill.

In 1796, Stuart painted his first full-length portrait of Washington for William Petty, first Marquis of Lansdowne, as a gift from the Philadelphia merchant William Bingham. It was Bingham's wife, Anne, who persuaded Washington to sit again for Stuart, even though the president had grown weary of the process of portraiture. The formal pose and the scale of the portrait, as well as the use of objects to represent thematic material, are hallmarks of the tradition of European state portraiture. Stuart conceived of Washington as a great civilian leader, surrounded by pictorial clues to his outstanding leadership of the new nation.


 Print text