George Washington

This portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart is one of an estimated 75 replicas of Stuart’s famous “Athenaeum portrait” of the first president. Stuart painted the original Athenaeum portrait—today owned jointly by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston—from life in 1796. The artist retained the unfinished portrait during his lifetime. It later became known as the Athenaeum portrait because the Boston Athenaeum acquired it just after the artist’s death and owned it for nearly 150 years. The Athenaeum portrait is one of the most iconic images of Washington, in part because it served as the basis for Washington’s engraved visage on the one-dollar bill beginning in 1869.

The Joint Committee on the Library purchased this replica of the Athenaeum portrait for the United States Capitol in 1876, the nation’s Centennial year. It is referred to as the “Chesnut portrait” after its first owner, Colonel John Chesnut Sr. (1743–1818), a prosperous plantation owner in Kershaw County, South Carolina. Chesnut likely acquired this portrait of Washington around the time he commissioned his own portrait from Stuart (now in the collection of the Denver Art Museum). Family correspondence reveals that Chesnut sat for the artist in his studio in Germantown, Pennsylvania, during the last days of September and beginning of October 1800. It was not uncommon for original owners of Stuart’s Athenaeum-type portraits to have another connection to the artist, most often having commissioned Stuart to paint their own portrait (as was the case with Chesnut) or portraits of their family members.

The Chesnuts had a direct and multi-generational connection to George Washington, explaining why a portrait of the first president of the United States might have been an appealing acquisition. John’s father, James Chesnut (1717–1755), had died in 1755 while serving in the French and Indian War alongside Washington at the Battle of the Monongahela. John was himself a military veteran, having served in the South Carolina militia during the American Revolution. Following the war, Chesnut joined the South Carolina state legislature and served as a member of the state’s convention to ratify the federal Constitution in 1788. He met then-President Washington for the first time in 1790, introduced by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a former aide-de-camp to Washington during the Revolution and a signer of the Constitution. Chesnut connected with Washington again on May 25, 1791, when he welcomed Washington to Camden, South Carolina. During this visit, the two apparently discussed agriculture, and Washington sent Chesnut a drill plow from Mount Vernon the following month to facilitate the cultivation of indigo on Chesnut’s plantations.

After Chesnut’s death in 1818, the painting of Washington became the property of his son James Chesnut Sr. (1773–1866). James Chesnut built Mulberry Plantation in 1820 on land he had inherited from his father in Kershaw County, and the portrait is known to have hung there for most of the time it was in James’s possession. After James’s death in 1866, the portrait passed to his son James Chesnut Jr. (1815–1885), a former United States senator who represented South Carolina from 1858 until November 10, 1860, when he became the first senator to withdraw following Abraham Lincoln’s election.

James was able to enjoy his ownership of his grandfather’s portrait of Washington by Stuart only until late 1874, when, facing severe economic troubles, he wrote to William Wilson Corcoran on December 6, expressing interest in selling it. Corcoran was a prominent Washington, D.C., arts patron and founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Chesnut wrote, “You will naturally support that I would not primarily, select this for sale without some sufficient reason. But by doing so, it may save me from a greater sacrifice.” [1] Corcoran responded four days later, stating that he would be happy to help facilitate the sale if Chesnut would send the portrait to Washington, D.C. On January 8, 1875, Corcoran wrote to confirm that the portrait had arrived safely, and he kept Chesnut apprised of his efforts to sell the painting throughout 1875 and the first half of 1876. On May 10, 1876, Corcoran informed Chesnut that the Joint Committee on the Library would likely purchase the portrait once its members, who were visiting the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, returned to Washington. And indeed, on June 16, the committee approved the purchase for $1,200.

After its purchase, the painting hung in various locations in the Capitol. For most of the 20th century, it hung in the main corridor of the Senate wing. In 1972, the portrait was relocated to its present location, the Mike Mansfield Room.


1. Letter from James Chesnut Jr. to William Wilson Corcoran, December 6, 1874, from the Papers of the Williams, Chesnut, and Manning Families, the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.

George Washington, first president of the United States, earned the epithet Father of His Country for his great leadership, both in the fight for independence and in unifying the new nation under a central government. Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and worked as a surveyor in his youth. In 1752 he inherited a family estate, Mount Vernon, upon the death of a half brother, Lawrence. Washington's military career began in 1753, when he accepted an appointment to carry a warning to French forces who had pushed into British territory in the Ohio valley. In subsequent military assignments, Washington distinguished himself against the French, first while aiding General Edward Braddock and later as commander-in-chief of all Virginia militia.

In 1758 Washington returned to civilian life as a gentleman-farmer at Mount Vernon and soon took a seat in the Virginia house of burgesses. As a planter, Washington had firsthand knowledge of the economic restrictions being imposed by Britain, and as a Virginia legislator, he supported political efforts to curtail British control of the colonies. Washington was selected to serve as a delegate to the first and second Continental Congresses, and in June 1775 he was chosen to command the American forces. He successfully led the Continental army through eight difficult years of war for independence.

In 1783, after the Revolution, Washington resigned his military commission to Congress at Annapolis, Maryland. Recognizing the need for a strong central government, he served as president of the federal convention charged with drafting the Constitution. Reluctantly, he accepted the will of his colleagues to become president of the new nation, and he was inaugurated in New York City on April 30, 1789. Contending with the ideological struggles within the government, and with hostilities between France and Great Britain, Washington greatly feared the growth of political parties and the dangers of foreign involvement. These issues impelled him to serve a second term as president.

His attempts to solve foreign relations issues during his second term resulted in Jay's Treaty (1794), a vain attempt to regulate trade and settle boundary disputes with Great Britain, and the Pinckney Treaty (1795), which successfully settled such issues with Spain. Washington also acted vigorously to enforce federal authority by quashing the Whiskey Rebellion, during which liquor producers in western Pennsylvania threatened the new republic by rebelling against an unpopular excise tax on whiskey.

Washington's 1796 Farewell Address to the nation emphasized the need for a unified federal government and warned against party faction and foreign influence. Although often subjected to harsh criticism by his contemporaries, Washington succeeded in giving the new government dignity. He saw a federal financial system firmly established through the efforts of Alexander Hamilton, and he set valuable precedents in the conduct of the executive office. Washington retired to Mount Vernon, where he died on December 14, 1799.