The Washington Family
Date1834
Artist
John Gadsby Chapman
(American, 1808 - 1889)
Subject
Jane Charlotte Blackburn Washington
(American, 1786 - 1855)
Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 92 3/16 in. × 62 1/4 in. × 1 1/2 in. (234.16 cm × 158.12 cm × 3.81 cm)
Overall (sight): 93 1/2 in. × 61 7/8 in. (237.49 cm × 157.16 cm)
Credit LinePurchased by the William and Lisa Moore Acquisition Endowment Fund, 2018
Conservation courtesy of The Founders, Washington Committee Endowment Fund
Object numberH-5709
DescriptionA group portrait of Jane Charlotte Blackburn Washington (Mrs. John Augustine Washington II) and four children, three boys and one girl. The painting is set on the piazza at Mount Vernon with the Potomac River in the background. Jane Charlotte Blackburn Washington, dressed in black, is at the center of the composition holding a Bible. To her left, her daughter, Anna Maria Thomasina Blackburn Washington, wearing a floral pattern cream silk gown with her left arm resting on her mother’s chair and her left hand holding a guitar (H-2790). To her right, behind her shoulder, her youngest son, Richard Scott Blackburn Washington, stands flipping a page in the Bible. Her eldest son, John Augustine Washington III, stands to the right of the composition with his hands resting on the shoulders of Jane’s orphaned nephew, Noblet Herbert, who is dressed in a red-brown outfit holding a hat. Jane Washington’s hand points to a rose on the floor alluding to her deceased husband. The family appears in front of a column and a curtain that is pulled back.Published ReferencesBetty Carter Smoot, Days in an Old Town (Washington D.C.: Judd & Detweiler, Inc., 1934), 173-174.
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1850-1865
1800-1805
c. 1808-1812
c. 1850
c. 1876