Noteworthy Sale: Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia PA by Staff from Antiques & Fine Art magazine

Sold to a private collector
Rembrandt Peale (American, 1778-1860)
George Washington, 1854
Oil on canvas, 30 x 25 inches
Inscribed on the reverse prior to re-lining: "Painted by Rembrandt Peale,/ in 1854,/ From his Original Portrait, /of 1795."
Courtesy of Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia

Late in his career the Philadelphia portraitist Rembrandt Peale became absorbed in the task of producing portraits of George Washington. He advertised these images as being a synthesis of his own 1795 life portrait, the life sittings taken by his father Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827), the famous portraits by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828), and the bust by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828).

Peale painted this example, which represents the first president and Revolutionary War hero in military uniform, in 1854. It descended directly through the family of Peale's second wife Harriet Cany Peale (ca. 1782-1869) from whom the Mutual Assurance Company of Philadelphia purchased it in 1932.