George Washington (Vaughan-Sinclair portrait)

1795

Gilbert Stuart

Painter, American, 1755 - 1828

Shown from the chest up, an older man with pale, peachy skin, wearing a high-collared black coat and a cream-white, ruffled collar, is shown against a deep wine-red background in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our right, and he turns his face to look at us with gray eyes under pale gray eyebrows. He has a hooked nose and jowls along his chin line. His cheeks are flushed, and his lips are set in a line. His white hair flares out along the sides of his head and is tied at the nape of his neck with a ribbon loosely painted and outlined with black. His ink-black coat has silvery gray highlights along the high collar and his right shoulder, to our left. The background is painted with light brushstrokes, deepening from scarlet red around his face to black at the upper corners.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.
Information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century, pages 206-208, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-18th-century.pdf
On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G41-B

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 73.8 x 61.1 cm (29 1/16 x 24 1/16 in.)
    framed: 92.7 x 80 x 9.5 cm (36 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 3 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1940.1.6

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

William Sinclair, Fort William, County Antrim, Ireland; his daughter, Elizabeth Sinclair May [Mrs. Edward May], Belfast; her son, George Augustus Chichester May [1815-1892], Belfast;[1] his son, Sir Edward Sinclair May [1856-1936], Rockbeare Court, Exeter, Devon;[2] (Colnaghi and Obach, London) in 1919; (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); sold November 1919 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh;[3] deeded 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1940 to NGA.
[1] Information on the early ownership of the painting was provided on a label attached to the stretcher: "Portrait of General Washington painted by an Irish artist named Stewart for a public building in New York & sent by an American Gentleman as a present to William Sinclair of Belfast." Sir Edward Sinclair May identified the handwriting as that of his grandmother Elizabeth Sinclair May in his letter of 28 May 1919 to an unidentified correspondent (copy, NGA curatorial file). In a different writing on the label is the comment that the portrait was "Mentioned in Edmonds' 'Life of Washington,'" but Cyrus Edmonds, Life and Times of General Washington, 2 vols., London, 1835-1836 does not discuss the Vaughan image of Washington or this painting in particular. On Sinclair and May see the entry on May in Dictionary of National Biography, 66 vols., Oxford, 1890, reprinted in 22 vols., Oxford, 1963-1964, 13:140.
[2] May's letter of 28 May 1919 to an unidentified correspondent inquires about the possible sale of the portrait (copy, NGA curatorial file); on May see Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 17th ed., London, 1952, 1746-1747.
[3] Information on the ownership by Colnaghi and Obach and M. Knoedler & Co., and the sale to Andrew Mellon, was provided by Melissa de Medeiros, librarian, M. Knoedler & Co., in a letter dated 12 August 1992 (NGA curatorial file).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1920

  • Loan Exhibition of Old Masters for the Benefit of the Bellevue Hospital Convalescent Relief Committee, M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1920, no. 16.

1932

  • George Washington Bicentennial Historical Loan Exhibition of Portraits of George Washington and his Associates, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1932, no. 27.

1940

  • Masterpieces of Art. European & American Paintings 1500-1900, New York World's Fair, 1940, no. 181, repro.

1948

  • Famous American Paintings, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Texas, 1948, unnumbered catalogue.

1950

  • From Plymouth Rock to the Armory, The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, Florida, 1950, no. 17.

  • The Face of American History, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, 1950, no. 15.

  • Makers of History in Washington 1800-1950 [An Exhibition Celebrating the Sesquicentennial of the Establishment of the Federal Government in Washington], National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1950, no. 1, repro.

1951

  • Amerikanische Malerie: Werden und Gegenwart, Rathaus Schöneberg, Berlin, 1951, no. 3.

1952

  • Opening Exhibition of The George Thomas Hunter Gallery of Art, Chattanooga Art Association, Tennessee, 1952, unnumbered catalogue.

  • [Opening exhibition], Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, 1952, no catalogue.

1959

  • Works of Art Lent by Southern Museums, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, 1959, no. 29.

1965

  • 200th Anniversary of the Community, Reynolda House, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1965-1966, no catalogue.

1973

  • Opening Exhibition, Paul Holden Fine Arts Building, University of Wisconsin at Superior, April 1973, no catalogue.

1987

  • The American Solution: The Origins of the United States Constitution, The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1987, unnumbered catalogue.

Bibliography

1923

  • Fielding 1923, 122, no. 8.

1926

  • Park 1926, 849-850, no. 8, repro.

1931

  • Morgan & Fielding 1931, 254-255, no. 8, repro. opp. 256.

1932

  • Eisen 1932, 1:39-40.

1941

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 189, no. 492, pl. XI.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 249, repro. 9.

1949

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 139, repro.

1960

  • The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 25, repro.

1964

  • Mount 1964, 378.

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 106, repro.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 236, repro.

1989

  • Verheyen, Egon. "'The most exact representation of the Original':Remarks on Portraits of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart and Rembrandt Peale." Studies in the History of Art 20 (1989):127-139, repro.

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 67.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 350, repro.

1995

  • Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 206-208, repro. 207.

2004

  • Barratt, Carrie Rebora, and Ellen G. Miles. Gilbert Stuart. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (for the National Portrait Gallery). New York, New Haven, and London, 2004: 141-142, fig. 87.

2014

  • Mims, Bryan. "Asheville's Fortress of Art." Our State Down Home in North Carolina (1 October 2014): 40-42, 44, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20180164

You may be interested in

Loading Results