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A unique Rembrandt Peale portrait that was precursor to the new standard in Washington images.
[GEORGE WASHINGTON].
Painting. Portrait of George Washington, by Rembrandt Peale. Oil on canvas, c. 1819 - 1822. 28 1/8 x 30¼ in. In gilt frame 34¼ x 39¼ in.
Inventory #22676
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Rembrandt Peale painted his first portrait of Washington in 1795, at the age of seventeen. He depicted Washington in the style of Gilbert Stuart, presenting the President as a serious dressed in black velvet with a ruffled collar. The resulting portrait is now at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and served as the basis for numerous copies Peale produced over the next several decades. He remained unsatisfied, and continued to paint Washington portraits, copying his own portraits as well as his father, Charles Willson Peale’s, paintings.
Peale was one of the few painters to have painted Washington from life, and also among the most prolific Washington portrait artists. Peale employed a variety of formats, poses, and styles, which can be divided into three rough categories: portraits made directly from the 1795 sitting; the well-known 1823 Patriae Pater portrait and the numerous “porthole portraits” copied from it; and a group of trial portraits painted between 1796 and 1823. These trial portraits were steps on the way to his famous 1823 painting. Peale experimented with a poses, facial expressions, dress, and format in his attempt to create an image that reflected Washington’s national significance and set a new standard for his portraits.
This portrait of Washington is from the group of “trial portraits.” Art historian Gustavus A. Eisen asserts that although Peale painted a number of Washington portraits between 1796 and 1823, he was most prolific in the early 1820s. Disappointed with his own work as well as the work of others who attempted to paint Washington, Peale “became, so to speak, inspired to produce a new heroic and all-around satisfactory likeness of Washington to be accepted as a standard by all Americans” according to Eisen. No two were alike, but they did share some common characteristics and demonstrate Peale’s attempt “to create something new, partly from his own remembrance of Washington as he as a boy knew him, and partly from the more youthful portraits painted by his father and his uncle.” Ultimately, Peale wanted to show Washington’s heroic character and “wished to show him in full manhood, strong, powerful, and self-sufficient.”
This particular portrait is unusual among Peale’s Washington images. While his pose and facial expression are based on the 1795 prototype, Washington is dressed in full military uniform instead of the usual black garments from the earlier sitting. Additionally, Washington stands outdoors under a brilliant sky. Washington faces slightly to the left; his nose sharper and lips pursed more than in other examples. Peale portrays Washington with a clear, contemplative gaze and healthy skin tones, in short, he presents a vibrant Commander-in-Chief. Eisen identifies a subtype among the “trial portraits” that he calls “model for the head of the statue in the Place de Jena [sic].” An equestrian statue modeled by Daniel Chester French and Edward Clark Potter (French modeled Washington and Potter the horse) stands on a pedestal in the Place de Iéna in Paris. It is possible that French used either the present portrait, or one like it, as the basis for his sculpture.
Eisen does not mention specific examples of portraits such as this, but John Hill Morgan and Mantle Fielding, in their Life Portraits of Washington and Their Replicas identify two portraits of the type:
8. Washington
Full bust portrait in uniform. Sold in auction by Davis and Harvey, October 31, 1901. Estate of J. C. Randall, Philadelphia.
9. Washington
Bust, to left, powdered hair, blue eyes, blue uniform, buff revers, gold epaulettes. Signed on back “R. Peale, Pinxt.” Painted for General William Shepard of Massachusetts (1737–1817). Canvas; size 30” x 25” owned by Daniel W. Patterson, New York City.
Both of the above portraits cannot be located, so it is unclear whether they refer specifically to this portrait, or if this is a third example.
At some point in its early history, this Portrait of George Washington was given to United States Supreme Court Justice Gabriel Duvall (1752–1844) of Prince George’s County, Maryland. Duvall’s home, “Marietta,” was not far from Mount Vernon. (Duvall’s home is now the Marietta House Museum.) The portrait descended in the Duvall family until the 1920s, when Aldred Livingston Gump of S & G Gump, the San Francisco-based luxury retailer and dealer in fine and Oriental art acquired it. In 1934, Gump sold the painting through its branch in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Anna Rice Cooke. Cooke was a founder of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and in 1934 she presented the portrait to the institution. The portrait was regularly on view at the Honolulu Academy for many years until the painting was deaccessioned in 1972.
Rembrandt Peale (1778–1860), portrait painter, was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His father, Charles Willson Peale, the artist, evidently expected his sons to follow in his footsteps, as five of his seven sons’ names were inspired by Old Masters such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Raphael, and Titian. Rembrandt Peale began to draw at the age of eight years. A year after his mother’s death and the remarriage of his father, Peale left the school of the arts, and completed his first self-portrait at the age of 13. He would go on to become one of the most celebrated American artists, painting portraits of many notable figures, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Chief Justice John Marshall, William Henry Harrison, Dolley Madison, and John C. Calhoun.
Provenance
Judge Gabriel Duvall (1752–1844), Prince George’s County, Maryland; and by descent in the Duvall family, until the 1920s; to [S & G Gump, Honolulu, Hawaii]; to Anna Rice Cooke, Honolulu, Hawaii, until 1934; by gift to the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Hawaii, 1934–72; to [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1972–73]; to a private collection.
Sources
Carol Eaton Hevner, Rembrandt Peale, 1778–1860: A Life in the Arts,
exhibit catalog. [Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1985] p. 33.
Gustavus A. Eisen, Portraits of Washington, Vol. 2 (New York: Robert
Hamilton & Associates, 1932) pp. 409, 415.
John Hill Morgan and Mantle Fielding, Life Portraits of Washington and Their
Replicas (Philadelphia: 1931) p. 383.
