View of the North [Hudson] River (Morning)

Status

Not on view

Label Text

George Washington purchased several large-scale landscapes during his lifetime, including a pair by English-born artist, William Winstanley. Washington paid Winstanley 30 guineas or $140 for the two paintings on April 6, 1793. In a letter written at Philadelphia three days later, Alexander Hamilton commented on seeing the canvases in an upstairs room of the president's house, "There are two views of situations on Hudson's River painted by Mr Winstanly (sic), in the drawing Room of Mrs. Washington, which have great intrinsic merit…" In both images, the idyllic subject matter and picturesque composition take precedence over capturing precise location details.

After his presidency ended, George Washington displayed both paintings in Mount Vernon's New Room. Martha Washington's grandson, George Washington Parke Custis (1781-1857) purchased the pair at the estate sale held on July 20, 1802, after her death. He took the paintings to Arlington House, Arlington, Virginia, where they descended in the Custis and Lee families.

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Datec. 1793

Artist William Winstanley (British, active ca. 1793-1806)

Geography Retailed - United StatesProbably made - United States

Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall (H x W x D, framed): 46 1/4 in. x 59 3/4 in. x 4 in. (117.48 cm x 151.77 cm x 10.16 cm) Other (H x W, canvas): 36 1/4 in. x 49 3/8 in. (92.08 cm x 125.41 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, 1940

Object numberW-1179

DescriptionHorizontal, rectangular landscape painting depicting a view of the North or Hudson River. A man drives a horse to drink along the bank in right foreground. Large trees frame scene at left and right. Calm river with tree-lined banks flows to background right. Sun rises at right.

Frame:
Gilded, rectangular wooden frame with mitered corners and molded faces embellished with composition material, including scallop shells along at the back edge, acanthus leaves at the corners, twisted ribbon and flowers at the top and edge, a reeded hollow, a string of pearls or beads, and a plain filet at the sight edge.

Published ReferencesJoseph Manca, George Washington's Eye: Landscape, Architecture, and Design at Mount Vernon (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 169-171.

William M.S. Rasmussen and Robert S. Tilton, George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 102-103, 185.

Wendell Garrett, ed., George Washington's Mount Vernon (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1998), 177-179, 182-183.

William Barrow Floyd, "The Portraits and Paintings at Mount Vernon from 1754-1799: Part 2," The Magazine Antiques (December 1971): 895-896.

James Thomas Flexner, The Light of Distant Skies (New York: Dover, 1969), 118.

George C. Groce and David H. Wallace, The New-York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America, 1564-1860 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 696.

J. Hall Pleasants, "Four Late Eighteenth Century Anglo-American Landscape Painters," reprinted from the Proceedings of American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1943), 118-20.

William Macpherson Hornor, Jr., Blue Book of Philadelphia Furniture (Philadelphia: 1935), 287.

Bernard J. Lossing, Mount Vernon and its Associations Historical, Biographical and Pictorial (New York: W. A. Townsend & Company, 1859), 319.

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