George Washington, 1732-1799

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Not on view

Datec. 1789

Attribution John Ramage (Irish, c. 1748 - 1802)

Subject George Washington (American, 1732 - 1799)

Medium/TechniqueWatercolor on ivory

DimensionsOverall: 2 3/4 in. x 11/16 in. x 3/8 in. (6.99 cm x 1.75 cm x 0.95 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Stanley King Family Foundation, 1997

Object numberW-3935

DescriptionOval, bust-length portrait in polychrome watercolors of George Washington, face three-quarters turned, and gazing to the (proper) right. The portrait is lit from the (proper) right, and President Washington is shown with blue eyes; red has been applied to define the corners of the eyes and the lips. A wash of color appears along his jawline. His hair is powdered and a curl is shown over his left ear; darker chestnut-colored hair appears behind his head in what looks like a braid. He is wearing his blue Continental army uniform with buff-colored facings and waistcoat, the top button of which is unbuttoned, gold buttons and epaulettes, and white stock and lace jabot. The white-edged blue ribbon of Washington's badge of the Society of the Cincinnati is visible in the (proper) left lapel, though the badge itself is obscured by the frame. The ground is polychromatic with an overall effect of grayish-brown, though certain areas, particularly around the head at (proper) right echo the blue and particularly the gold of the uniform. There are tiny dots of dark blue paint at the lower edge at proper right. At upper (proper) right, the unpainted edge of the ivory is revealed where it has not been covered by the frame.

The miniature is framed in an elaborate gold casing, and engraved with scallops, festoons, and stippled patterns and an outer gadroon border.

The back of the portrait frames a lock of hair under a glass casing bearing the monogram of Washington "GW" in gold. The patina of the gold surface appears uneven and discolored.

Published ReferencesAdam T. Erby; Dean J. Norton; Esther C. White and Susan Prendergast Schoelwer, The General in the Garden: George Washington's Landscape at Mount Vernon ( Mount Vernon, Virginia : Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, 2015), frontispiece.

James C. Rees, Treasures from Mount Vernon: George Washington Revealed: (Mount Vernon, Virginia: Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, 1999), 66.

Sotheby Parke Bernet New York Catalog, December 8, 1972.

General References to Ramage miniatures:

Ellen Miles and Edmund S. Morgan, George and Martha Washington: Portraits from the Presidential Years (Washington, D. C., 1999), 18-19.

Daphne Foskett, A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters (London, 1972), vol. I, 461.

Frederic Fairchild Sherman, Early American Portraiture (New York, B. Blom, 1972).

Leo Schidlof, The Miniature in Europe (Austria, 1964), vol. II, 663.

John Hill Morgan, "The Ramage Miniatures of George Washington," The New York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin, Vol. 20 No. 4 ,(October 1936), 95-104.

John Hill Morgan and Mantle Fielding, The Life Portraits of Washington and Their Replicas (Philadelphia: 1932), 139-142.

Gustavus A. Eisen, Portraits of Washington (New York, 1932), vol. II, 487-488.

Frederic F. Sherman, John Ramage: A Biographical Sketch and a List of his Portrait Miniatures (Privately printed, 1929), pl. 1 and 10-11.

Basil Long, British Miniatures (London, 1929), 355-356.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Miniatures Painted in America 1720-1850, (New York, 1927), 45.

Theodore Bolton, Early American Portrait Painters in Miniature (New York, 1921), p. 132.

Harry Snowden Stabler, "Two Unpublished Portraits of George Washington, Part I," The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (February 1894), 544-547.

Charles H. Hart, "Original Portraits of George Washington," The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine (April 1889): 864.

Elizabeth Bryant Johnston, Original Portraits of George Washington (Boston, 1882), 114.

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