2024-01-14 14:31:56
Culture US President
Why the Metropolitan Museum is selling a portrait of George Washington
Status: 16.01.2024 | Reading time: 3 minutes
Portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, 1795
Those: Christie´s
George Washington was the first President of the United States of America. His likeness entered the collective memory – thanks to the painter Gilbert Stuart. Now one of his famous paintings is going under the hammer.
Sales from the holdings of a state museum or from a public collection are not planned in many countries. The term “deaccessioning” is therefore also uncommon in Germany. In America, institutions have different structures, are less dependent on taxpayers’ money, rely more on private financial commitment, and check their collections more frequently for items that can be monetized.
When an institution of international standing like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York removes a painting whose likeness every child between Oregon and Florida would be familiar with from its collection and puts it up for sale, it still attracts attention. And so it was quickly stated that the portrait of George Washington by the painter Gilbert Stuart was a kind of duplicate. The museum has another painting with a similar motif.
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Gilbert Stuart was one of the busiest portrait artists of the young United States of America, which had declared independence in 1776. He shaped the media’s perception of their first president and turned George Washington’s characteristic physiognomy into a brand.
Never without a silk bow in your hair
He had been commander-in-chief in the American Revolutionary War, then a member of the Constitutional Convention and the President of the USA from 1789 to 1797 – and had (at least in pictures): a clear look, rosy cheeks, thin lips pressed together resolutely and the typical hairstyle with white powdered, Curls teased on the sides and tied at the nape of the neck with a black silk bow.
„George Washington (The Athenaeum Portrait)“ von Gilbert Stuart
Quelle: Getty Images
The most famous picture that Stuart painted of Washington was never finished. Only the head is complete. This “Athenaeum Portrait,” which hangs in the Boston Art Museum, became the basis for the famous character head on the one-dollar bill.
The so-called “Vaughan Portrait” by Stuart is considered the presidential portrait par excellence, simply because it set the standard for the genre of painting. Samuel Vaughan, a London merchant and close friend of Washington, commissioned it from the painter Gilbert Stuart, who was born in 1755 in the then British colony of Rhode Island and trained in Scotland and London.
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Stuart painted around 1,100 pictures in his five-decade career. He portrayed George Washington a good 100 times, made one copy after another of the patient motif, varied the backgrounds and symbolic accessories around the figure of the statesman, and worked on perfecting his key work. There are 14 variations of the “Vaughan Portrait”; The third in the series, which is now being auctioned by Christie’s from the Metropolitan Museum, is considered one of the best.
The Washington portrait from the Met is being auctioned at Christie’s
Those: Christie´s
Wearing a black coat against a red background, the painter concentrated entirely on the kind, gentle, sublime stature of the American founding father, who was considered strong, honest and modest. She gets movement in fine details, such as the zigzag of the white ruffled hem, the abstractly suggested hair bow, the heated facial skin, the cool blue of the eyes.
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“Portrait painting of the noblest expressiveness”
Gustaf August Eisen, a Swedish polymath who presented an art historical study of all Washington portraits in 1932, recognized the work, created in 1795, as “portrait painting of the noblest expressiveness”. The auction house Christie’s expectantly estimates the painting at 1.5 to 2.5 million dollars and is offering it as a Main lot in the “Important Americana” auction am 18./19. Januar 2024 in New York an.
The Met, however, retains in its collection an even earlier but somewhat more classic-looking portrait from Gilbert Stuart’s Vaughan series. It was also painted in 1795. Washington is shown here with an opulently tied bow in front of a green curtain.
Remains in the museum: George Washington portrait by Gilbert Stuart
Quelle: picture alliance / Heritage-Images
One is “in the fortunate position of owning a rich collection of paintings by Gilbert Stuart”. The funds would therefore allow the Met to “continue to prioritize the acquisition of outstanding works of art.”
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