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Authors: Hugh Howard
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accuracy was less interesting to the artist
than an appealing picture with overall grace and appeal.
That Peale failed to capture the colonel’s physicality was a little surprising since the painter had witnessed a demonstration
of Washington’s athletic prowess during his visit to Mount Vernon. His stay had been extended when his brief was broadened
to include the painting of watercolor miniatures on ivory of Patsy, Jacky, and Martha. He also found the Washingtons’ home
a welcoming and social place, since at dinner most days there were a dozen or more at the table, including family, friends,
and other visitors. In general, he observed, “the Character of the Virginians for Hospitality” was higher than that of his
patrons in “Pensilvania.” What he left unsaid was that the former provided him room and board at their cost, a kindness not
extended to him in the northern colonies. 9
One day during his stay Peale and several other guests at the Mansion were outdoors playing a round of “pitching the bar.”
A contest akin to traditional log-and pole-throwing, the game involved heaving a heavy iron bar as far as possible. One man
would throw, and the distance he achieved was marked with a stake. Then another competitor would have a go. On this day, the
man who threw it the farthest wasn’t even in the competition.
Washington unexpectedly appeared amidst the men, who were standing on the lawn stripped to their shirts of white linen, their
sleeves rolled up for ease of movement. He inquired into the progress of their game. When the markers indicating the distances
achieved were pointed out to him, his somber visage broke into a confident smile.
“[W]ithout putting off his coat,” Peale reported, “[he] held out his hand for the missile. No sooner did the heavy iron bar
feel the grasp of his mighty hand than it lost the power of gravitation, and whizzed through the air, striking the ground
far, very far, beyond our utmost limits.”
The onlookers were amazed. Washington soon left them to their exertions but promised to return. “When you beat my pitch, young
gentlemen, I’ll try again.” 10
If Peale’s portrait didn’t capture the latent power of the Virginia colonel, certain physical details were accurate. The hair
that appears from beneath his hat is reddish brown. The nose is long and broad and the face ruggedly handsome. The eyes, though
hooded, are identifiably bluish-gray. In life Washington was forty years of age, but in Peale’s portrayal the age of the soft-featured
man is uncertain. Out of kindness, perhaps, Peale also chose not to mar Washington’s fair complexion with the scars around
his nose, evidence of his bout of smallpox in Barbados. Yet the boredom of the sitter comes through; as he himself reported
to Boucher, while posing he felt himself “under the influence of Morpheus,” feeling at times as if he were falling asleep
on his feet. 11
The setting Peale chose for his canvas was not the Virginia plantation where he painted Washington. The backdrop for the dashing
officer in the regimental blue and red uniform suggests not the cultivated tobacco fields of Tidewater Virginia but the Ohio
country, with a mountain stream and Indian camp on the frontier where much of the war had been fought. Years earlier, Washington’s
exploits there had brought him to the attention of King George II.
Washington’s service to the king during the 1750s had had mixed results. The 1754 ambush by Washington’s men of a detachment
of French soldiers, during which the enemy’s commanding officer, the Sieur de Jumonville, was killed, helped kindle the French
and Indian War. Afterward, the twenty-two-year-old Washington had confided in a younger brother, “I heard the bullet’s whistle
and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” When his remark was published and brought to attention of the
king, Washington’s boast led George II to
than an appealing picture with overall grace and appeal.
That Peale failed to capture the colonel’s physicality was a little surprising since the painter had witnessed a demonstration
of Washington’s athletic prowess during his visit to Mount Vernon. His stay had been extended when his brief was broadened
to include the painting of watercolor miniatures on ivory of Patsy, Jacky, and Martha. He also found the Washingtons’ home
a welcoming and social place, since at dinner most days there were a dozen or more at the table, including family, friends,
and other visitors. In general, he observed, “the Character of the Virginians for Hospitality” was higher than that of his
patrons in “Pensilvania.” What he left unsaid was that the former provided him room and board at their cost, a kindness not
extended to him in the northern colonies. 9
One day during his stay Peale and several other guests at the Mansion were outdoors playing a round of “pitching the bar.”
A contest akin to traditional log-and pole-throwing, the game involved heaving a heavy iron bar as far as possible. One man
would throw, and the distance he achieved was marked with a stake. Then another competitor would have a go. On this day, the
man who threw it the farthest wasn’t even in the competition.
Washington unexpectedly appeared amidst the men, who were standing on the lawn stripped to their shirts of white linen, their
sleeves rolled up for ease of movement. He inquired into the progress of their game. When the markers indicating the distances
achieved were pointed out to him, his somber visage broke into a confident smile.
“[W]ithout putting off his coat,” Peale reported, “[he] held out his hand for the missile. No sooner did the heavy iron bar
feel the grasp of his mighty hand than it lost the power of gravitation, and whizzed through the air, striking the ground
far, very far, beyond our utmost limits.”
The onlookers were amazed. Washington soon left them to their exertions but promised to return. “When you beat my pitch, young
gentlemen, I’ll try again.” 10
If Peale’s portrait didn’t capture the latent power of the Virginia colonel, certain physical details were accurate. The hair
that appears from beneath his hat is reddish brown. The nose is long and broad and the face ruggedly handsome. The eyes, though
hooded, are identifiably bluish-gray. In life Washington was forty years of age, but in Peale’s portrayal the age of the soft-featured
man is uncertain. Out of kindness, perhaps, Peale also chose not to mar Washington’s fair complexion with the scars around
his nose, evidence of his bout of smallpox in Barbados. Yet the boredom of the sitter comes through; as he himself reported
to Boucher, while posing he felt himself “under the influence of Morpheus,” feeling at times as if he were falling asleep
on his feet. 11
The setting Peale chose for his canvas was not the Virginia plantation where he painted Washington. The backdrop for the dashing
officer in the regimental blue and red uniform suggests not the cultivated tobacco fields of Tidewater Virginia but the Ohio
country, with a mountain stream and Indian camp on the frontier where much of the war had been fought. Years earlier, Washington’s
exploits there had brought him to the attention of King George II.
Washington’s service to the king during the 1750s had had mixed results. The 1754 ambush by Washington’s men of a detachment
of French soldiers, during which the enemy’s commanding officer, the Sieur de Jumonville, was killed, helped kindle the French
and Indian War. Afterward, the twenty-two-year-old Washington had confided in a younger brother, “I heard the bullet’s whistle
and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” When his remark was published and brought to attention of the
king, Washington’s boast led George II to
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