George Washington

Charles Peale Polk

ca. 1790 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

Polk used his uncle Charles Willson Peale's so-called Convention portrait as the basis for this image; Peale painted the original portrait from life at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Polk portrayed Washington numerous times from various sources but never from life. In 1790 Polk wrote to Washington requesting a sitting and stating that he had executed fifty portraits of him during the previous year.

Artist

Charles Peale Polk

Date

ca. 1790

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Bequest of Charles Allen Munn, 1924