George Washington

This 1795 “Vaughan-style” portrait by Gilbert Stuart depicts George Washington from life. The three-quarter pose, direct eye contact, and compositional framing of a curtain and landscape recall conventions of British court portraiture. Conversely, Washington’s sagging skin, ruddy complexion, and wrinkled ribbon attest to Stuart’s naturalistic approach and reflect late eighteenth-century America’s shift away from monarchist art. Unique to Winterthur’s Vaughan portrait, the appearance of an “untamed” landscape calls to mind Mount Vernon, Washington’s home on the Potomac River, though not without the reminder that the estate’s establishment required the removal of Indigenous peoples and the labor of enslaved Africans.