George Washington

George Washington (1732-1799)
(Athenaeum portrait)
First President (1789-1797)

When Americans chose their first President under their new Constitution in 1788, the election of George Washington was a foregone conclusion. In the recent fight for independence, no one had been more crucial than he, and of the Founding Fathers, none engendered as much admiration.

Despite Washington's prestige, his presidency had its critics. Toward the end of his administration, one newspaper branded him a "scourge and misfortune." Still, even some of his critics doubtless admitted that his election had been a wise choice. While his administration's fiscal policies brought sorely needed economic stability, his adroit leadership kept the country safely removed from involvement in the Anglo-French conflicts of the 1790s. Above all, his firm leadership gave a credibility to the new federal government that assured its survivability. Washington's intellect, Thomas Jefferson once admitted, was not "of the very first order." Nevertheless, he added, "He was indeed . . . a wise, a good, and a great man."

Gilbert Stuart painted this portrait from life in 1796, when Washington was President. He painted the likeness to use in a full-length portrait commissioned as a gift for the Earl of Shelburne. In the same year, Stuart painted Washington's wife Martha.

The artist kept the unfinished paintings until his death, using the likeness of Washington as the basis for many subsequent portraits, which were painted to meet the steady demand for Washington's image.

Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828)
Oil on canvas, 1796
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Owned jointly with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
NPG.80.115

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George Washington (1732-1799)
(Lansdowne portrait)
First President (1789-1797)

George Washington brought the gift of his cast-iron character to the turbulence of early American life. "This Vesuvius of a man," as a biographer described him, who was threatened always by the eruption of his own fierce irritability, achieved a serene and compelling dignity of presence that portraitists transformed into the very image of republican majesty.

Gilbert Stuart painted this celebrated "Lansdowne" portrait in his Germantown, Pennsylvania, studio in 1796. It was commissioned by William Bingham, United States senator from Pennsylvania, and his wife, for the Earl of Shelburne, later Marquis of Lansdowne, who had defended the rebellious colonies in Parliment.

George Washington (Lansdowne portrait)
by Gilbert Stuart, oil on canvas, 1796
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Acquired as a gift to the nation through the generosity of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

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Rembrandt Peale's "Patriae Pater" of Washington

Not long after George Washington's death in 1799, Rembrandt Peale began to think about creating a definitive portrait of him that combined physical likeness with the full grandeur of his character and accomplishment. Using the Washington likeness he had painted in 1795 as his starting point, he came up with image after image, all of which he found wanting. Finally, in 1823, he decided to have one more try. The result was the original version of this portrait, which at last measured up to his expectations. Framed in stone to underscore the monumentality of the subject, the image became known as "Patriae Pater," and it was Peale's ambition to make it the main likeness by which posterity would know Washington. In the end, however, Peale's Washington never became the national icon that its maker hoped it would be, and today Americans know Washington best through the much-replicated likeness that Gilbert Stuart painted of him in 1796.

Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860)
Oil on canvas, probably 1853
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Gift of an anonymous donor
NPG.75.4

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