Washington Winter Show 2020

57 victory in the War of 1812. Conspicuous among these are the elegant ormolu (gilt bronze) clocks (see fig. 2 in Grigsby essay) assembled and marketed by the Parisian firm of Jacques Nicolas Pierre François Dubuc (Dubuc l’ainé), now among the most sought-after—and priciest—Washington collectors’ items (outside of original life portraits). According to advertisements published in several American newspapers in 1815, Dubuc credited the design to an unnamed resident of Baltimore, a city justly proud of having repulsed the British troops that had burned the nation’s capital. 6 Rather like modern cars, Dubuc clocks offered a range of decorative options on a standard design, produced in two sizes, approximately 20 and 15 inches tall. A full-length figure of Washington stands next to an eagle-topped plinth holding the clockworks. Plaques applied to the pedestal display classical ornament and (on the large clocks) a low-relief frieze of Washington resigning his Continental Army command and surrendering his sword to Congress—a key moment distinguishing the American Revolution from all others. Dubuc’s letter to his patron affirms that “the statue is a good likeness of ‘the Father of the Republic,’ as no pains and expense were spared searching the Louvre, the galleries and the hotels, which abound with efforts to perpetuate his memorable person.” 7 Two slightly different versions of the figure are both recognizable as John Trumbull’s distinctively lithe Washington, which George Washington Parke Custis, the General’s adopted grandson and a devoted steward of Washington relics, later praised as the most accurate representation of Washington’s physique. 8 A “National Standard Likeness” In 1823, a quarter century after Washington’s death, Rembrandt Peale embarked on a quest to reshape the president’s image. Rembrandt’s father, Charles Willson Peale, had been the “go-to” Washington portraitist of the Revolutionary era, creating in 1779 the pre-eminent image of the victorious commander, Washington at Princeton (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts), commissioned for the Pennsylvania State House and subsequently replicated for the king of France and other highly placed European supporters. During the presidency, however, the elder Peale’s likenesses had gradually been supplanted in popular culture by newer images created by Joseph Wright, Fig. 6: George Washington , Berlin work by Laura (Lollie) Virginia Smith, possibly at the Sisters of the Holy Cross school in Washington, DC, c. 1865, a er Gilbert Stuart’s Lansdowne portrait (1796). Detail of reverse. Gi of the descendants of Lollie V. Smith, 2016. Photo by Gavin Ashworth. Fig. 7: Washington pen wiper, c. 1860–1880. Wool, velvet, gold braid, hair, paper. Purchased with funds provided by Clare C. Edwards, Vice Regent for Connecticut, 2013. Photo by Gavin Ashworth.