ID: 700000385 Page link: http://vocab.getty.edu/page/cona/700000385	Record Type: Movable Work
Images: 1

George Washington (oil painting (visual work); Charles Willson Peale (American, 1741-1827); ca. 1779-1781; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, New York state, U...; 97.33)

Note: On January 18, 1779, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania passed a resolution commissioning a portrait of George Washington for the Council Chamber and selected Charles Willson Peale as the artist. In preparation, Peale traveled to the Princeton and Trenton battlefields in February of 1779 to make sketches for the background. The original portrait, the full-length version now in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, was a tremendous success and Peale completed numerous copies for royal palaces abroad, each time updating the general's military dress. This figure of George Washington was probably painted between June and August of 1780. In every other version, Washington is shown after the Battle of Princeton, but here he is depicted after the Battle of Trenton, the turning point of the war. It has been suggested that this portrait was commissioned upon the order of Mrs. Washington, because it is the only portrait in which Washington wears his state sword and because the painting descended in the Washington family.

Titles:

George Washington (preferred,C,U,D,English-P,U,U)

Catalog Level: item

Work Types:

oil painting (visual work) [300033799] (preferred)

..... (Objects Facet, Visual and Verbal Communication (hierarchy name), Visual Works (hierarchy name), visual works (works), <visual works by material or technique>, paintings (visual works), <paintings by material or technique>)

Classifications:

paintings (preferred)

Creation Date: ca. 1779-1781

Creator Display:

Charles Willson Peale (American, 1741-1827) [preferred,VP]

painter Peale, Charles Willson (American painter, 1741-1827) [500017914]

Locations:

Current: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, New York state, United States) [500125157] Corporate Bodies (Corp. Body)

Repository Numbers: 97.33

Credit Line: Gift of Collis P. Huntington, 1897

Address Note: On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 753

Display Materials: oil on canvas

	oil paint (paint) [300015050]
	.......(Materials Facet, Materials (hierarchy name), materials (substances), <materials by function>, coating (material), <coating by form>, paint (coating), <paint by composition or origin>)

	canvas (textile material) [300014078]
	.......(Materials Facet, Materials (hierarchy name), materials (substances), <materials by form>, <materials by physical form>, <fiber and fiber by product>, <fiber by product>, textile materials, <textile materials by process or technique>)

Dimensions: 241.3 x 156.8 cm (95 x 61 3/4 in.)

Cultures:

American (preferred)

General Subject:

portraits (preferred)

Specific Subjects:

	George Washington (American general and president, 1732-1799) [500126198]
	.....(Non-Artists) (ULAN)

	single-sitter portrait [300404138]
	.....(Objects Facet, Visual and Verbal Communication (hierarchy name), Visual Works (hierarchy name), visual works (works), <visual works by subject type>, portraits) (AAT)

	full-length figure [300343592]
	.....(Objects Facet, Visual and Verbal Communication (hierarchy name), Visual Works (hierarchy name), visual works (works), <visual works by subject type>, figures (representations), <figures by portion represented>) (AAT)

Provenance: The sitter's niece, Harriet (Mrs. Andrew Parks), until 1822; her daughter, Mary Parks (Mrs. Milton Hanford); her cousin, Miss Bell, Tooting, Surrey, England; with Samuel Putnam Avery, Jr., New York, 1896; Collis P. Huntington, New York, 1896–97

List/Hierarchical Position:

..... Movable Works

.......... Movable Works by class: drawings, paintings, prints, other two-dimensional media

Sources and Contributors:
George Washington	........ [VP]
	........ Metropolitan Museum of Art [online] (2001-) accessed 21 May 2012

Subject: ....... [VP]

Note:
English	..... [VP]
	..... Metropolitan Museum of Art [online] (2001-)