George Washington
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
Commissioned by John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, the Philadelphia-based artist Charles Willson Peale painted George Washington as Commander-in-Chief just before the issuing of the Declaration of Independence. Washington enslaved more than three hundred people on his Virginia plantation prior to and during his tenure as the nation’s first president. However, the tension between the existence of slavery and the Declaration’s affirmation of freedom and equality (“all men are created equal”) is absent from Peale’s celebrated portrait.
Caption
Charles Willson Peale American, 1741–1827. George Washington, 1776. Oil on canvas, 44 × 38 5/16 in. (111.7 × 97.3 cm) frame: 3 13/16 × 53 3/4 × 48 in. (9.7 × 136.5 × 121.9 cm) frame: 53 1/4 × 48 × 3 3/4 in. (135.3 × 121.9 × 9.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 34.1178. No known copyright restrictions (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 34.1178_edited_PS9.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
George Washington
Date
1776
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Dimensions
44 × 38 5/16 in. (111.7 × 97.3 cm) frame: 3 13/16 × 53 3/4 × 48 in. (9.7 × 136.5 × 121.9 cm) frame: 53 1/4 × 48 × 3 3/4 in. (135.3 × 121.9 × 9.5 cm)
Signatures
Unsigned
Credit Line
Dick S. Ramsay Fund
Accession Number
34.1178
Rights
No known copyright restrictions
This work may be in the public domain in the United States. Works created by United States and non-United States nationals published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, subject to the terms of any applicable treaty or agreement. You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this work. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties, such as artists or artists' heirs holding the rights to the work. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. The Brooklyn Museum makes no representations or warranties with respect to the application or terms of any international agreement governing copyright protection in the United States for works created by foreign nationals. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
Frequent Art Questions
What is this?
That detail shows Washington's fob seal. A fob seal was a stamp of a coat of arms or a similar symbol, engraved in a gemstone and set in wood, gold, or ivory, then attached to the person's clothing with a chain or strap. Washington owned several elegant fobs with gold settings. He was shown wearing fobs in many portraits, as well as the painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Why do all these old portraits feature guys posing with their hands in their shirts?
The hand-in-waistcoat pose was very popular in 18th- and early 19th-century American and European portraits. This pose dates back to ancient Greece, when it was used by orators. In Washington's time, it was thought to combine leadership and quiet confidence, so etiquette books recommended it for gentlemen who wanted to appear calm and in control. The hand-in-coat gesture later became associated with Napoleon because he was often portrayed this way as well.How much did Hancock pay Peale for this portrait originally?
Great question! However, we don't have any record of the price paid available.I wonder if famous painters then were paid a lot or a little. I believe they depended on patrons or commissions, like composers.Artists were paid very well by wealthy and powerful individuals that commissioned them to paint portraits of themselves and family members.When was this painted?
This was actually painted by the artist Charles Willson Peale in 1776, right at the height of the Revolutionary War!That's interesting, Washington looks so young!He does! There are is another painting of President Washington nearby that looks a little different. It was made by Gilbert Stuart years later, when Washington was President. They make an interesting comparison.Tell me more.
The first portrait of Washington is known as the Lansdowne Portrait. Stuart's Athenaeum Portrait is the basis for the $1 bill. This second portrait is from much earlier in Washington's career, when he was still a general.Washington famously hated sitting for portraits. He sat for a few artists, including Stuart and Peale, out of a sense of duty.
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