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  “EQUESTRIAN WASHINGTON,” OIL ON CANVAS PAINTING OF GEORGE WASHINGTON ON BLUESKIN, AFTER REMBRANDT PEALE, circa 1830-1850 (POSSIBLY PRIOR)
Dimensions (inches): frame - 37.25" x 32.25", work - 29.5" x 24.5"
Description:
Born in Bucks County Pennsylvania during the American Revolution, Rembrandt Peale (Feb. 22, 1778 – Oct. 3, 1860) was the son of Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), the leading painter in the American colonies. A member of the Sons of Liberty, Charles left home shortly after Rembrandt's birth to fight with Washington's army. He taught most of his 17 children to paint, of which Rembrandt is the most celebrated, though two others, as well as an adopted nephew, achieved significant notoriety.

Charles was one of the two most famous artists to paint Washington from life, the other being Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828). The last to do so was Rembrandt Peale, at the mere age of 17, whom Washington sat for in 1795, near the end of his presidency. This became the most celebrated feather in the cap of the young artist, who proudly wore it for the remainder of his life when marketing his trade. The sketch that he created that day laid the groundwork for not only his repute for having done so, but also a crazed obsession to create what he desperately hoped would someday become the “national portrait and the “standard likeness” of Washington.

The most familiar of Rembrandt’s paintings of the president & general is regarded as the “porthole portrait,” a three-quarter, head and shoulders image, painted in 1824, that illustrated him in a blue and buff yellow military coat, with prominent epaulettes, presenting the subject as if viewed through an oval window, painted as part of the canvas. Also of great significance was an 1823 work that pictured him on horseback, entitled Before the Battle of Yorktown, accompanied by Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton, Lafayette, and Rochambeau.*

Next to his father and Stuart, Rembrandt Peale’s renditions of Washington are the most recognizable, perhaps in a near tie with those of the artist John Trumbull (1756-1843), who for a short time, in 1776, served as the general’s aide-de-camp. All four men trained in Great Britain under Benjamin West, arguably the most celebrated painter world-wide. West encouraged each to paint historical views of American figures and achievements, offering advice to the young Rembrandt Peale specifically, conveyed to him in a letter by his father, suggesting that he consider subjects that possessed “powers to dignify man.”

This view of Washington, upon his horse, commonly referred to as “Equestrian Washington,” is widely thought to have been first painted by Rembrandt. Although this work has sometimes been equated with various paintings rendered in the 1820’s, that illustrated him on horseback with various staff, on or about the battlefield (i.e., the Yorktown picture), this work instead presents him as a lone figure on a horse before a tree-lined landscape, with a presumed army encamped or engaged in the distance, the sky tinged with the red light of fires or cannon.

Leading historian E.P. Richardson, commonly referred to as the ‘Dean of American Art Historians,’ co-founder of the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian (1954), director of the Detroit Institute of Arts (1945-62), and of Winterthur (1963-66), and of the Board of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1968-70), was of the opinion that Rembrandt produced this work earlier following his 1808 return from Paris. There he would have viewed similar equestrian compositions by European masters. In a Sept. 17th, 1982 letter from E.P. Richardson to Larry Fleishman, Richardson declares: "That is where I place this Washington and the two other versions," suggesting this as “his first attempt to arrive at a GREAT WASHINGTON."

A different story is told by the former owner of a copy of Equestrian Washington named Alexander Randall, the best friend of Rembrandt Peale’s nephew, Alexander Robinson [son of his sister, Angelica and her husband, also named Alexander]. Randall, described as a “fervent admirer of the Peale’s work,” owned a copy of Equestrian Washington, presented to him by his brother, Daniel, which is among the holdings of the Hammond-Harwood House Museum in Annapolis. When he physically met with Rembrandt for the first time, on April 15th, 1858, Rembrandt confirmed that he had, in fact painted the picture and recognized it, explaining that it was actually a copy of an original by his father, Charles Willson Peale, which he had painted during the Revolutionary War. Rembrandt reported to Randall that the original was “purchased by Mr. Bingham, then a wealthy man living in the house where my brother [Daniel] was then boarding.”

If Charles Willson Peale painted such a work, it was either destroyed, lost, or otherwise remains unrecorded. Due to the level of scholarship in this particular field, none of the above possibilities seem especially likely, though I suppose stranger things have happened. William Bingham, a member of the Second Continental Congress, Speaker of the House, Senator, and founder of Pennsylvania Bank, the first bank in the United States, was the wealthiest man in America in 1780. A serious buyer of art, he was an extremely likely candidate for such a painting, if it existed. In 1796, it was Bingham who commissioned one of the most famous of all Washington images, the Lansdowne portrait by Gilbert Stuart, gifted to British Prime Minister Lord Lansdowne, who had secured a peaceful end to the Revolution and had just signed John Jay’s Treaty of 1794, in attempt to cease escalating British harassment of American trade vessels.

Rembrandt Peale was no doubt privy to all sorts of behind the scenes information about the art world at the time, especially with regard to Washington. When the president sat for him in 1795, it occurred in three sessions. On day one, intimidated and nervous, he was joined by his father. Day two was a joint session, with Gilbert Stuart also in attendance, working on what would become known as his Vaughan portrait. Martha Washington was present and teased the young Peale a bit, in good fun.

Another rendition of Equestrian Washington by Rembrandt Peale was handed down through the Jones and Sharp families, thereafter acquired and sold privately by the Adams Davidson Gallery in Washington, DC, then by Kennedy Galleries in NYC in 1982, sold privately in 1987, and offered at Christie’s in 2004, where it sold to a private collector for $1,071,500.

The copy of Equestrian Washington that is the subject of this narrative, rendered in oil on canvas, was likely painted in either the first or second quarter of the 19th century. Conservatively I would place it between approximately 1830 and the 1850’s, though possibly prior. Though different in several regards from the two copies signed by Peale, the work is of extraordinarily fine quality. The most readily noticeable differences lay in Washington’s face, in the head of Blueskin and in the presentation of his mane, and in the level of detail within the surrounding landscape. Note how the eyes of Blueskin, in this copy, are especially prominent, gleaming, and conspicuously mouse-like. The heads in both of the above paintings, each signed by Rembrandt, are narrower, and the flowing manes more like those of humans than horses. More attention is given to the surroundings by Peale, but perhaps the most critical feature, with regard to the convincing nature of any Washington image, is his face. Though Rembrandt sought throughout his lifetime to achieve the most accurate, recognizable, and enduring presentation of Washington, that would solidify itself in the American consciousness, this copy of Peale’s work, unsigned and unattributed, conveys what I would suggest is a better rendering of both man and horse, at least with regard to my expectations. The face is predictably his. The mane of the commander-in-chief’s warhorse would be cropped or at the very least orderly, so that the general would be unencumbered.

One has to wonder if this copy may have been a product of another Peale, perhaps one of Rembrandt’s siblings, or instead commissioned by an art dealer such as Parisian-American Leon Goupil, a leading print-maker in Paris and London who expanded into paintings, maintained a gallery on Broadway in New York, and was very successful with American historical works. It was Goupil who convinced Emanuel Leutze to paint his 12’5” x 21’3” replica of Washington Crossing the Delaware, shortly after his completion of the first. Goupil then sold the massive work to a collector, following its exhibition at the Stuyvesant Institute, where, in spite of it being a one painting show, 50,000 people attended and paid to view it. Colonial and Revolutionary American personalities were enormously popular at the time. Goupil would have attracted highly skilled painters of all sorts for commissioned copies.

Whatever the case may be, the image in this copy of Equestrian Washington is compelling, and the neoclassical, old master style, fitting for both the subject and period. What I perhaps like most about this rendition, past its fine quality, the recognizable face, and the whimsically memorable eyes of Blueskin, is the simple fact that this view of Washington, while familiar, is not standard fare. It feels like it should be everywhere, but it isn’t. Because of this, it will be both appreciated by viewers and remembered.

Framing: The decorative, gilt frame is approximately period to the work. Though likely not original, it is very fitting.

Condition: At some point small creases, losses, and tears were repaired and the canvas was adhered to wooden panel. Though its provenance remains unknown, for a period of time the work hung at the New York Hilton on 6th Ave., between 53rd & 54th Streets. When I acquired it there were various small losses and abrasions in the background, three extremely small areas of paint loss and a couple of tiny flecks of the same in the horse, and a few tiny flecks in Washington’s uniform. I had these filled and restored, with a light varnish applied to match its already pleasant luster. The frame had many losses and was carefully restored.

* As the 50th anniversary of American Independence approached, Rembrandt sought to convince Congress to commission from him a large and prominent painting of Washington, to be installed in the U.S. Capitol’s recently constructed rotunda. This became integral to Peale’s goal of instilling the most familiar image of the father of our country. Rembrandt painted a 36 x 29-inch version of “Before the Battle of Yorktown” in 1823, as a means to market the much larger canvas that he intended to sell. In spite of ongoing rejection, and as enormous paintings were instead acquired from his competitor, John Trumbull, which Rembrandt disliked, he nonetheless began an 139 x 121-inch version of the Yorktown work in 1824, in undeterred anticipation of success. Though the hoped for purchase was never consummated, the work was twice lent to the capitol and displayed in the rotunda during Rembrandt’s lifetime. According to a letter penned by Rembrandt to an unidentified gentleman on April 12th, 1858, one of these instances was in progress at that time. Rembrandt passed about 2.5 years later, just 34 days before the 1860 presidential election, when Lincoln gained the White House.

Never installed, the enormous 11.5 x 10-foot (approx.) oil-on-canvas of Before the Battle of Yorktown” was gifted in Mt. Vernon in 1873, and, due to its being too large for any available wall, was subsequently loaned to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC, in 1944. The latter institution would eventually acquire the picture, the holdings of which were recently transferred to the National Portrait Gallery. The smaller version was sold at Christie’s in 1999 for $1,045,000.

** Penned in a Sept. 17th, 1982 letter from E.P. Richardson to Larry Fleishman.
   
Primary Color: multicolored
Earliest Date: 1815
Latest Date: 1850
For Sale Status: Sold
Price Please call (717) 676-0545 or (717) 502-1281
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