The Passage of the Pato'k thro' the blew mountain, at the confluence of that River with the Shan'h

Status

Not on view

Label Text

George Washington suggested the two views of the Potomac River depicted in this landscape and its companion piece - one set at Great Falls and the other at present-day Harper's Ferry - as "grand objects" for painting. Both canvases (W-2 and W-3) initially hung in the upstairs drawing room of the executive residence in Philadelphia. After Washington retired from the presidency, they were placed in Mount Vernon's New Room. In full view of the Washingtons' many guests, these dramatic views promoted the beauties and wonders of the natural - and national - scenery of the new United States.

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Date1797

Artist George Beck (English, 1749 - 1812)

Retailer Samuel Salter

Geography Retailed - United States

Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall (H x W x D, framed): 47 7/16 in. x 58 3/4 in. x 4 in. (120.49 cm x 149.23 cm x 10.16 cm) Other (H x W, canvas): 39 in. x 49 5/8 in. (99.06 cm x 126.05 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Louisa Washington, 1880

Object numberW-3

DescriptionHorizontal, rectangular landscape painting depicting a river which flows through a narrow pass just above center in distance, through rocks in the midground, and then turns to the right. Large tree in foreground right with trunk angled to right and roots exposed. Clouds in sky. Sun shining at left.

Frame:
Gilded, rectangular wood frame with mitered corners and cove-molded faces with applied composition ornament, including leaves in each corner and a string of beads or pearls along the inside edge.
Published ReferencesJoseph Manca, George Washington's Eye: Landscape, Architecture, and Design at Mount Vernon (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 168-171.

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), 182.

William Barrow Floyd, "The Portraits and Paintings at Mount Vernon from 1754-1799: Part 2," The Magazine Antiques (December 1971): 897.

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

Edna Talbott Whitley, "George Beck: An Eighteenth Century Painter," The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 67, no. 1 (January 1969): 30.

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), 15, 24-25.

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

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