Read The Painter's Chair Online
Authors: Hugh Howard
The Painter's Chair (26 page)
Word of the portrait soon reached many ears. Inevitably, the match of the newcomer and the president produced great curiosity,
and as the time came for a public viewing of the new portrait, the public was hungry to see what the “Modern Vandyke” had
made of His Excellency. The portrait “created a great sensation,” and Stuart’s expectations for a business in Washington likeness
were soon met.
14
His studio became a meeting place for important members of Philadelphia society, including Generals Knox and Lee, the British
minister and his wife, members of the French nobility, and others. Many of these notables wanted portraits of themselves;
more than a few desired copies of his
George Washington
.
15
On April 20, 1795, Stuart put pen to paper. He had been taking orders for some time, even before coming to Philadelphia, but
enough had now accumulated that it was becoming difficult to keep track. He titled the sheet:
A list of gentlemen who are to have copies of the Portrait of the President of the United States.
Then he wrote down the names of those who had requested replicas, all thirty-two of them. Some of these men were friends from
his English days, including Benjamin West, and many were Philadelphia merchants. There were New Yorkers, too, including “Col.
Burr” and “Mr. Chief Justice Jay.” Some customers had already made deposits (he recorded the $200 paid by “I. Vaughan, Esq.”;
that was the merchant Joseph Vaughan, who wanted two). When he added up the orders, the total amounted to thirty-nine replicas.
16
Stuart busied himself in the coming months, spending much of 1795 making more
Washingtons
, at times painting more than one at a time. On some canvases, he added a curtain in the background with a splash of pink
in a blue sky. In others he emphasized the face with a red background that brightened in the area of the head. He varied the
neck ruffle and the hair ribbon. He switched to painting Washington in his more regal black velvet suit.
He took on an assistant, John Vanderlyn, a young man he had met in New York, an aspiring painter who had previously worked
in Thomas Barrow’s color shop. Vanderlyn blocked out the basic shapes on some of the Washington canvases and painted copies
of several other Stuart subjects. Even with help, however, Stuart failed to fill all his orders.
17
As Abigail Adams observed, “Genius is always ecentirck, I think . . . [T]here is no knowing how to take hold of this Man,
nor by what means to prevail upon him to fulfill his engagements.”
18
But Stuart did collect his $100 fees from more than a dozen of his customers for completed replicas.
An early version was delivered to Joseph Vaughan of Philadelphia, who sent it on to London to his father, Samuel, a friend
and admirer of Washington. The elder Vaughan had presented the General with an elegant mantelpiece of carved marble for Mount
Vernon, which, at first, Washington thought “too elegant and costly by far . . . for my own room and republican style of living”
(he installed it anyway in his New Room). An engraving of Vaughan’s
Washington
soon appeared in a translation of the book
Essays on Physiognomy
by the Swiss theologian Johann Caspar Lavater. Lavater was a chief proponent of the science of physiognomy, believing passionately
that temperament and character could be read in facial features and expressions. (In examining busts of William Pitt, the
same “Great Commoner” whom Peale had memorialized years before, Lavater recognized the eyebrows “of a seer, a thinker, a political
prophet”; in the nose, forehead, lips, eyes, and even Pitt’s warts, Lavater saw revealed to him an “
eagle’s face humanized
. . . it is a hovering, gliding eagle, high over the nations of Eu rope; London is its eyrie, Parliament in its view, England
under its wings”).
19
Of Washington’s image he observed that the eyes did not seem to possess the “heroic force . . . inseparable from true greatness.”
While he had never seen the General in the flesh, Lavater still offered his interpretation of Washington. “Every thing in
this face announces the good man,” Lavater observed, “a man upright, of simple manners, sincere, firm, reflecting and generous.”
20
Not everyone liked Stuart’s portrait, of course. The Peale family of painters—most notably Charles Willson—saw imperfections.
As son Rembrandt reported, “We all agreed, that though beautifully painted and touched in a masterly style, as a
likeness
it is inferior to its merit as a painting—the complexion being too fair and too florid, the forehead too flat, brows too high,
eyes too full, nose too broad, about the mouth too much inflated, and the neck too long.”
21
The Peales, themselves partisans in the portrait game, might be expected to snipe at the new competition in town. But Stuart,
too, remained discontented with this portrait of a preoccupied president whose mind looked to be elsewhere, and he was far
from finished with taking Washington’s likeness.
III.
Winter 1796 . . . Philadelphia
G
EORGE WASHINGTON WELCOMED
anything
that reminded him of retirement. Eight years before, he had agreed to become president because he felt obliged to bow to the
common wisdom that he wasn’t merely the best man for the job but the
only
one. Several years later, having promised himself he would serve but one term, he had asked his trusted colleague, Congressman
James Madison, to draft a valedictory address. He hadn’t banked on the pressures that soon arose and that seemed to come from
all directions. His old friend, Eliza Willing Powel, a favorite dinner partner and the wife of a prominent Philadelphia merchant
and former mayor, put it persuasively when she spoke truth to power. If he were to retire after one term, she advised him,
he would be “quitting a trust, upon the proper execution of which the repose of millions might be eventually depending.” She
described him as “the only man in America that dares to do right on all public occasions.”
She didn’t stop there. “You have shown that you are not intoxicated by power or misled by flattery,” she continued. “You have
a feeling heart and the long necessity of behaving with circumspection must have tempered that native benevolence which otherwise
might make you too compliant . . . the soundness of your judgment has been enriched on many and trying occasions, and you
have frequently demonstrated that you possess an empire over yourself. For God’s sake, do not yield that empire to a love
of ease.”
22
Thus chastised, Washington felt bound to remain in office, and he accepted the unanimous vote of the 132 members of the electoral
college for a second term.
Now, however, as he contemplated a new notion of Martha’s to commission pendant portraits of the two of them, the idea seemed
a way of commemorating his much anticipated “return to the walks of private life.” There would be no third term—on that matter
he was utterly firm—and in a year’s time, his successor chosen, he would climb into his carriage and leave Market Street,
bound once and for all to his acres overlooking the Potomac. So why shouldn’t they depart with a remembrance of the presidency,
just as Martha wanted?
They had been married thirty-seven years, and reminders of their early time together awaited them in Mount Vernon’s Parlor.
Since then the narrow-waisted girl in the portrait John Wollaston had painted in 1757 had matured into a plump and widely
admired matron. The open-faced country colonel pictured in Charles Willson Peale’s first portrait of Washington had subsequently
endured eight years of war, the birthing of the Constitution, and another eight years playing the demanding role of president.
The young horse man’s athleticism had given way to the pallor and softness of late middle-age.
Yes
, he agreed, new portraits of the white-haired president and his lady should decorate the walls at Mount Vernon, despite the
fact that his previous experience sitting for Mr. Stuart hadn’t been entirely plea-sur able. But all of Philadelphia seemed
to agree that Stuart made the best likenesses. Most important of all, Martha was among them.
LIKE GEORGE, MARTHA had taken many turns in the Painter’s Chair. She had sat before he did, posing in 1757 as the wife of
Daniel Parke Custis. As Mrs. George Washington, she had looked back at many of the same artists who rendered likenesses of
her husband. Just the previous year, she had posed for both Mr. Trumbull and Mr. Peale, and not for the first time.
The marriage of George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis had been characterized by warmth and civility. Certainly they
had grown fond of each other during their nine-month courtship back in 1758, but complementary circumstances rather than passion
had disposed them to take the vows of marriage. Both bride and groom had been bruised by love, Martha having watched death
take her husband and two young children. George’s heart still ached for Sally, the unattainable wife of his friend and neighbor,
George William Fairfax. It had been their compatible worldly needs that made the match of George and Martha seem logical.
The Widow Custis’s large inherited estate required knowledgeable and careful management; though he was an eligible bachelor
and a dashing soldier, George possessed only a small fortune, and his finances were tight. If their courtship was conceived
of convenience—she brought him wealth and status, he would manage her estate with skill and good faith—their union had proved
a partnership of abiding affection, respect, and cooperation. Many years later Washington himself would describe his marriage
in a letter to his old friend Lafayette’s wife Adrienne as “the dearest of all . . . resources of happiness.”
23
To sit for Mr. Stuart required no special preparation of Mrs. Washington. She would bring no airs to the chair, any more than
she did to her role as First Lady. She dressed simply, spoke plainly, and affected no superiority. She avoided display and
ostentation. As Abigail Adams wrote to her sister after her first meeting with Martha, “She is plain in her dress, but that
plainness is the best of every article . . . Her manners are modest and unassuming, dignified and feminine, not the Tincture
of ha’ture about her.”
24
Martha had been brought up to be a Virginia hostess and household manager, roles she had fulfilled at Mount Vernon for the
first fifteen years of their marriage. She had invested herself in caring for her two surviving children, and George had proved
a devoted stepfather. They both had watched in horror when Patsy collapsed and died of a violent seizure in 1773; she indulged
her surviving son, Jacky, only to see him die prematurely, too, in 1781. Although the union of George and Martha produced
no children, Martha’s mothering had been extended in 1779 when the baby Nelly had come into her grandmother’s care, since
the child’s own mother, Jacky’s wife, Eleanor Calvert Custis, was too ill to care for her. Two years later, Nelly’s six-month-old
brother Wash had come to Mount Vernon, too. With the death of Jacky, a new family was formed, as Nelly and Wash became the
children of Mount Vernon.
Now, in Philadelphia, Martha was the nation’s hostess. As the first to perform the role of First Lady, she followed her instincts,
conducting herself and her household much as she had done as the wife of a planter and a general. Like so many jobs of apparent
power and influence, her role came with surprising limitations. She was expected to entertain all visitors, but in order to
avoid the appearance of favoritism the First Family accepted no invitations to the homes of others. “I live a very dull life
here and know nothing that passes in the town,” she confided to a niece. “Indeed I think I am more like a prisoner than anything
else.”
25
But the Martha that Gilbert Stuart was to paint was nothing if not a practical woman, one who had learned to weather life’s
surprises. As she explained to one correspondent, “[T]he greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions,
and not upon our circumstances.”
26
A mother and grandmother, she was also a devoted aunt and adviser to many young women. She ran her kitchens with care, at
Mount Vernon and on the road, often relying on a cookbook, a gift from her first mother-in-law, that she herself revised and
updated.
She was happy in her fashion in a durable marriage that was a mix of public and private. She and George rarely dined together
as a couple. When away from Mount Vernon, the Washingtons had either a military or a presidential “family” around them, complete
with officers, advisers, clerks, lieutenants, foreign and political visitors, and others who joined them at the table. At
home, it was much the same, as they inhabited what Washington described as a “well resorted tavern” with a constant flow of
daily visitors. Yet Martha was central to the private life that her husband cherished, and her devotion to him sustained him.
She came to him in winter camp for each of the winters of the war—in Cambridge during the siege of Boston, at Valley Forge,
to Morristown in 1779–80 during the most brutal winter of the eighteenth century. These “winterings” were, for Washington,
the closest thing to normal life between the spring of 1775 and the turn of 1784.