Hanging with George

The 8-foot by five-foot full-length portrait of George Washington hung over the dais in the Senate Chamber survived a shipwreck and a courthouse fire before reaching its current location. As if that wasn’t enough, about 100 years after it arrived here, a former Senate curator, on the basis of an X-ray examination, incorrectly attributed it to the wrong artist. Thankfully, Rob Reif, a guide working for the Capitol Museum, assembled a thoughtfully researched presentation using personal correspondences, newspaper articles, appraiser notes and other sources to set this storied painting’s record straight.

It’s a copy of a famous portrait made by Gilbert Stuart in 1797. Stuart was one of the country’s leading portraitists at the time and his original version is part of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection in Washington DC. His daughter, Jane, was also a talented portraitist. In 1850, to celebrate California’s admission to the Union, several prominent Californians commissioned Jane Stuart to produce a copy of her father’s work. The daughter’s version is remarkably similar to her father’s, although she slightly adjusts some of the symbolism. For instance, in the daughter’s version Washington’s hand rests on top of papers placed on a table, indicating a completed work, whereas in the father’s version, Washington’s hand is stretched out before him toward an unknown future.

To get the painting from Rhode Island, where Jane Stuart lived, to California, the buyers shipped it in 1851 aboard a clipper called the Tagus, but before sailing beneath the Golden Gate it wrecked about four miles north at Potato Cove. A salvage operation ensued. The ship’s cargo was saved, but the ship was not. After that, the portrait spent several years in San Francisco, possibly as an inducement for potential donors to the Washington Monument, which was under construction at the time. In 1854 it went to the Senate chamber in the Capitol at Benicia. Then it went to Sacramento’s courthouse while the new Capitol was being built. The courthouse caught fire and none other than California’s third governor, John Bigler, helped rescue it from the flames. An article from the July 14, 1854 edition of “The Daily Democratic State Journal,” described Bigler “in his shirt sleeves giving No. 3’s boys (firefighters) a lift” and the reporter “observed nearly all the State officers rendering very efficient aid.”

In the 1950’s, a previous Senate curator X-rayed the portrait and mistakenly attributed it to William Wystanley, who also made excellent copies of Gilbert Stuart’s work. The curator based the determination on “erratic” brushwork, which was more akin to Wystanley than Jane Stuart. In 1980, the Senate had the painting appraised by Dr. James A. Beard, who confirmed the painting’s provenance as coming from Stuart and estimated its value at $28,500, which Reif estimates to be $92,000 in today’s dollars. Reif also noted, “Another Jane Stuart portrait of George Washington sold recently for $120,000, but ours seems to be of better quality.” Contact: Terry Cook 916 324 0333.