Martha Washington

Status

Not on view

Label Text

"This portrait in pastels of Martha Washington by English artist James Sharples was drawn from life when Mrs. Washington was 64. Sharples reportedly produced his pastel portraits relatively quickly—within several hours—and yet their characterizations of the sitters were generally superb. A number of sources suggest that Sharples’s supposedly mathematically correct proportions were derived with the use of a physiognotrace, a type of pantograph."

"Likely produced in Philadelphia in 1796, this likeness was displayed in Mount Vernon’s Front Parlor together with the artist’s pastels of George Washington, Martha's grandchildren, Eleanor (Nelly) Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis, and the Marquis de Lafayette's son, Georges Washington Motier Lafayette. Following Mrs. Washington’s death, the set was inherited by George Washington Parke Custis, and hung at Arlington House until the Civil War."

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Datec. 1796

Artist James Sharples (English, 1751/2 - 1811)

Subject Martha Washington (American, 1731 - 1802)

Geography Probably made - United States

Medium/TechniquePastel on laid paper.

DimensionsImage (H x W): 9 in. × 7 in. (22.86 cm × 17.78 cm) Overall (H x W): 12 1/2 in. × 10 3/8 in. (31.75 cm × 26.35 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, 1954

Object numberW-1963/A-C

DescriptionThis pastel is an oval bust-length profile portrait of Martha Washington, facing left with shoulders slightly turned to the proper left. Her hair is entirely under a white cap with a high crown, ruffled edge, and a blue and white striped ribbon tied with a bow at the back of her neck. She wears a dark blue dress with a white fichu or neckerchief draped around her neck and shoulders. The folds of the cap and the fichu are highlighted with bright white. Her skin and lips are pale, and there is a dark mark--possibly an accretion--on her cheek. The polychromatic background has an area of strikingly vivid blue tones from the top. Below this, is a dark grey-indigo color; then brown at right, and red-ochre at left.
c. 1796
Published ReferencesEllen Miles, George and Martha Washington: Portraits from the Presidential Years (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1999), 47-49 (General Reference).

James C. Rees, Treasures from Mount Vernon: George Washington Revealed (Mount Vernon, VA: MVLA, 1999), 60, 74.

Robert G. Stewart, "Portraits of George and Martha Washington," Magazine Antiques, 135:2 (February 1989): 478-479.

Katherine McCook Knox, The Sharples (New York: Kennedy Graphics, Inc., 1972), 56, 13-15, 91-93.

Arnold Wilson,“The Sharples Family of Painters,” Magazine Antiques (November 1971): 740-743.

Gustavus A. Eisen, Portraits of Washington (New York: Robert Hamilton & Associates) No. 2, 1932, 522-523; 506-523.

John Hill Morgan and Mantle Fielding, Life Portraits of Washington (Philadelphia, 1931), 395-410, 399.

Richard Quick, "Catalogue with Biographical Notes and Illustrations of the Sharples Collection of Pastel Portraits and Oil Paintings, etc." (Bristol Art Gallery) No. 1, c.1923.(General Reference)

Elizabeth Johnston, Original Portraits of Washington (Boston, J.R. Osgood and Co., 1882), 128.

George Washington Parke Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington (Washington D.C.: William H. Moore, 1859), 525.

Benson J. Lossing, Mount Vernon and its Associations (New York: W.A. Townsend & Company) 1859, 293-297.

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