View of the North [Hudson] River (Evening)
![View of the North [Hudson}] River (Evening)
Artist: William Winstanley
Oil on canvas
c. 179 ...](/internal/media/dispatcher/15739/preview)
![View of the North [Hudson}] River (Evening)
Artist: William Winstanley
Oil on canvas
c. 179 ...](/internal/media/dispatcher/15740/postagestamp)
![View of the North [Hudson}] River (Evening)
Artist: William Winstanley
Oil on canvas
c. 179 ...](/internal/media/dispatcher/15739/postagestamp)
![View of the North [Hudson}] River (Evening)
Artist: William Winstanley
Oil on canvas
c. 179 ...](/internal/media/dispatcher/15739/full)
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.
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Datec. 1793
Artist
William Winstanley
(British, active ca. 1793-1806)
Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas
DimensionsOverall (H x W x D, framed): 46 1/4 in. x 59 1/2 in. x 4 in. (117.48 cm x 151.13 cm x 10.16 cm)
Other (H x W, canvas): 36 3/16 in. x 49 3/8 in. (91.92 cm x 125.41 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, 1940
Object numberW-1180
DescriptionHorizontal, rectangular landscape painting depicting a view of the North or Hudson River. Five men fish with rods and nets along the bank at center and left foreground. A rectangular building with an arched doorway but lacking a roof appears in the middle distance on the far shore, just to the left of center. Bushes and a large tree frame scene at left and right. Calm river with cleared land and building in right distance. Sun shines from left. Cloudy sky.Frame:
Gilded, rectangular wooden frame with mitered corners and molded faces embellished with composition material, including scallops along the outside edge, curled leaves at the corners, rosettes across the faces, and reeding and a string of pearls or beads along the inside edge.
SignedOn rock in lower left corner: "Win Winstanly/ 1793/ New York"
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.
Mount Vernon's object research is ongoing and information about this object is subject to change. For information on image use and reproductions, click here.
![View of the North [Hudson] River (Morning)
Artist: William Winstanley
Oil on canvas
c. 1793](/internal/media/dispatcher/15741/thumbnail)
1800-1820
1750-1770
1755-1760
c. 1867-1899
1839