Portrait of George Washington

A Swedish-born artist who achieved a wide reputation as a portrait painter in France, Wertmüller fled to the newly founded United States to escape the French Revolution. He achieved immediate success, obtaining a sitting with the U.S. president at the Senate Chamber in Philadelphia in 1795. The Davis Museum’s painting may be the original, or one of the twenty-two copies Wertmüller made. Washington appears formally dressed in a black velvet suit, with freshly powdered hair, the residue of which remains sprinkled on his jacket.