Meet the painter of George Washington’s famous portrait

Gilbert Stuart , one of America’s master portrait artists is best known for his portraits of George Washington. His birthplace is Saunderstown, RI and the snuff mill of the Stuart family has been authentically restored and open to visitors — see visit information at the museum’s website: https://gilbertstuartmuseum.org/ (note: while the website indicates that Guided Tours are given on a regular basis, they depend on volunteer availability).

AMERICANREVOLUTION.ORG reveals the story behind the third and most famous painting of Washington: When Mrs. Washington wanted a picture of the President for herself, she persuaded her unwilling husband to submit a third time to Stuart’s brush and company. In the stone barn in Germantown he used as a studio, the painter waited anxiously for Washington to ride out for the first sitting… Washington entered the barn with cold courtesy, sat down in the chair Stuart had provided, and clamped his face into the rigid expression he saved for portrait-painters. Stuart plunged into his fund of anecdote, but the face did not relax… Stuart commented on a local horse race; Washington made an animated answer and his face came alive. Then Stuart ransacked his mind for all he knew about horses, and soon the two men were actually talking. Stuart’s brush flew merrily in rhythm with his tongue. The conversation moved on to farming, a subject it had never occurred to Stuart to discuss with the Commander-in-Chief, and again Washington was interested.

President Washington’s passion to horses and to farming probably explains his historic visit to Cole Farm in Providence, RI (see: http://sites.rootsweb.com/~rigenweb/articles/170.html “The Cole home has been preserved in as nearly as possible the form in which it was when early members of the Cole family entertained Washington and Lafayette, and contains among other relics of that day the chair in which the commander-in-chief sat.

Cole Farm was famous for its high-grade cows and for horse breeding. Read our blog post about one of the best Thoroughbred racehorses of the late 18th century : Hambletonian

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