Lansdowne portrait

The Lansdowne portrait is an iconic life-size portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1796. It depicts the 64-year-old president of the United States during his final year in office. The portrait was a gift to former British Prime Minister William Petty, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, and spent more than 170 years in England.

Stuart painted three replicas of the Lansdowne, and five portraits that were closely related to it. His most famous replica has hung in the East Room of the White House since 1800. Numerous other artists also painted copies.

First Lady Dolley Madison, George Washington Parke Custis, Paul Jennings, and others saved the White House replica from being destroyed in the August 24, 1814, Burning of Washington, D.C. by the British.

In 2001, to preclude the original Lansdowne Portrait's imminent sale at auction by Sotheby's New York, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. purchased it for $20 million with donations from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

The Lansdowne portrait likely (and fancifully) depicts President Washington's December 7, 1795, annual address to the Fourth U.S. Congress. The highly unpopular Jay Treaty, settling claims between the United States and Great Britain left over from the Revolutionary War, had been presented to the U.S. Senate for approval earlier in the year. The Senate held a special session to debate the treaty in June, at which opposition to it had been fierce. Only two-thirds of the 30 senators (the minimum required under the U.S. Constitution) approved the treaty in mid-August, and Washington, who strongly supported the treaty, signed it in late August. In his annual address, delivered to Congress on opening day of its next session, the President acknowledged the struggle over the Jay Treaty, and called for unity. There was lingering resentment in the House of Representatives, which expressed its displeasure by declining to appropriate funding for the treaty's implementation until April 1796.

In England, the Lansdowne portrait was celebrated as Washington's endorsement of the Jay Treaty:

The portrait presented by the President [sic] to the Marquis of Lansdowne is one of the finest pictures we have seen since the death of Reynolds. The dress he wears is plain black velvet; he has his sword on, upon the hilt of which one hand rests while the other is extended, as the figure is standing and addressing the Hall of Assembly. The point of time is that when he recommended inviolable union between America and Great Britain.

Washington's December 7, 1795, address was the last that he delivered to Congress in person. The following year the President published his Farewell Address in the newspapers, rather than delivering it to Congress.