Palmy Days at Mount Vernon

Status

On view

Label Text

In this imagined scene, the artist depicts Washington sitting at a tea table in the shade of his summer house, surrounded by friends and family with Mount Vernon in the background. The title recalls the expression “the palmy days of yesteryear” and immediately evokes a sense of prosperity and harmony, or halcyon days, which is especially poignant considering Rossiter completed the painting in 1866 as the nation was beginning its long recovery from the devastation of the Civil War. Even though Rossiter supported the Union cause to end slavery, he chose to include an enslaved servant in the composition, an act which seems symbolically to erase the troubles facing the nation during reconstruction and harken back instead to a time when the Washingtons and their home represented an untroubled, idyllic, and indeed civilized past for all Americans to embrace. The individuals gathered around the Washingtons include James and Dolley Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, George Washington Lafayette, Tobias Lear, the Lord Fairfax and his sister, Sophia Chew, George Washington Parke Custis, Eleanor (Nelly) Parke Custis, Lawrence Lewis, Frances Bassett Washington and her two children, Eleanor Calvert Custis Stuart, her husband Dr. David Stuart, and their daughter.

Read MoreRead Less

Date1866

Artist Thomas Prichard Rossiter (American, 1818 - 1871)

Subject George Washington (American, 1732 - 1799)

Subject Martha Washington (American, 1731 - 1802)

Subject Patrick Henry (American, 1736 - 1799)

Subject Alexander Hamilton (American, 1755 - 1804)

Subject James Madison (American, 1751 - 1836)

Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 37 3/4 in. × 50 3/4 in. × 2 7/8 in. (95.89 cm × 128.91 cm × 7.3 cm) Other (viewable canvas): 29 3/8 in. x 42 5/8 in. (74.61 cm x 108.27 cm)

Credit LineGift of Malcolm Matheson III, Emma Matheson Roe, Torrey Matheson Cooke, Charles T. Matheson, Lida Matheson Stifel, and William John Matheson, 2008 Conservation courtesy of The Founders, Washington Committee Endowment Fund

Object numberM-4790

DescriptionOil on canvas history painting of George and Martha Washington entertaining family and guests on the lawn near the summer house at Mount Vernon. At the center of the composition, George Washington sits at a table conversing with James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Patrick Henry, while Martha Washington sits opposite him sewing, and Eleanor (“Nelly”) Parke Custis looks on from behind. Wine glasses, a tumbler, tea equipment, and a silver waiter sit on the table between them, and a dog waits patiently at Washington’s side. Small groupings of friends and family fill the middle ground, slightly behind and on either side of the Washingtons. Immediately above Washington and to the right, Dolley Madison and George Washington Lafayette stand between the pillars of the summer house; Sophia Chew, Lord Fairfax and his sister are seated at a table in the middle of the room; and Richard Henry Lee and Lawrence Lewis converse on the far right of the summer house, deep in the shadows and behind a column covered in ivy. The young woman at the top of the summer house stairs is Frances Bassett Washington (Mrs. George A. Washington, the widow of Washington’s nephew), and she is surrounded by her son, Lafayette Washington (playing with a dog), and her daughter (admiring a flower). Just beyond the children, an enslaved servant, dressed in blue livery and balancing a silver waiter laden with a tea cup and saucer, kneels in the grass. To his left, and on the ground, is another silver waiter laden with additional tea cups, a silver coffee pot and a silver tea pot. The group on the lawn, behind Mrs. Washington, is composed from the far left of Tobias Lear, Dr. David Stuart, his wife, Eleanor Calvert Custis Stuart, and their daughter. Mrs. Stuart’s son, George Washington Parke Custis, plays with a dog at their feet. A couple walk in the middle distance just before the mansion house, and a view of the Potomac River is visible in the distance to the right.

SignedT.P. Rossiter, lower left
Published ReferencesBruce Weber. Every Kind of a Painter: The Art of Thomas Prichard Rossiter (1818-1871). Garrison, NY: Boscobel House and Gardens, 2015. “George Washington and His Family,” cited pp. 19, illustrated pp. 40.

Myron Magnet. The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014. “Palmy Days at Mount Vernon” illustrated opposite p. 153 and detail of jacket cover.

Dennis J. Pogue. “Drink and Be Merry: Liquor and Wine at Mount Vernon.” In Stephen A. McLeod, ed. Dining with the Washingtons: Historic Recipes, Entertaining, and Hospitality from Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, distributed by the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2011. “Palmy Days at Mount Vernon,” illustrated, pp. 96.

Maurie D. McInnis. “The Most Famous Plantation of All: The Politics of Painting Mount Vernon.” In Angela D. Mack and Stephen G. Hoffius, ed., Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art, pp. 86-114. Columbia, SC: The University of South Carolina Press, 2008.

Carol E. Borchert. “A Private Citizen on the Potomac: Thomas Rossiter’s George Washington and Family.” The Annual Report of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union (2000): 28-34. Illustrated pp. 29.

Charles Colbert. A Measure of Perfection: Phrenology and the Fine Arts in America. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997. “The Library at Mount Vernon [George Washington and his Family]” and “Palmy Days of Mount Vernon,” cited pp. 404, fn. 106.

Natalie Spassky, et. al. American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Volume II. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, in association with Princeton University Press, 1980. “Washington in his Library” and “Palmy Days at Mount Vernon,” cited pp. 88.

Margaret Broaddus. “Thomas P. Rossiter: In Pursuit of Diversity.” American Art and Antiques 2 (May/June 1979): 106-113.

Mark Edward Thistlethwaite. “The Image of George Washington: Studies in Mid-Nineteenth-Century American History Painting.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1977. “George Washington and His Family” and “Palmy Days of Mount Vernon,” cited pp. 137–39.

Ilene Susan Fort. “High Art and the American Experience: The Career of Thomas Prichard Rossiter.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Queens College of the City University of New York, 1975. “George Washington and His Family” and “Palmy Days of Mount Vernon,” cited in Chapter VI.

William H. Gerdts. Revealed Masters: 19th Century American Art. New York: The Federation of Arts, 1974.

The Catalogue of American Portraits in the New-York Historical Society, Vol. II. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974.

William Young, ed. A Dictionary of American Artists, Sculptors and Engravers. Cambridge, MA: William Young and Co., 1968.

Edith Rossiter Bevan. “Thomas Prichard Rossiter, 1818-1871,” a biography by his granddaughter, Typescript, D33, Arch. Am. Art, 1957. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution [available online, accessed June 14, 2018: https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/thomas-prichard-rossiter-and-rossiter-family-papers-8395/series-1/box-1-folder-6].

Edith Rossiter Bevan. “Thomas Prichard Rossiter, 1818-1871: Checklist of Paintings,” a list compiled by his granddaughter, 1957. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution [available online, accessed June 14, 2018: https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/thomas-prichard-rossiter-and-rossiter-family-papers-8395/series-1/box-1-folder-7].

Henry T. Tuckerman. Book of the Artists. New York: G. Putnam & Sons, 1867.

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.