Gilbert Stuart

Rhode Island native Gilbert Stuart painted several distinct portraits of George Washington from life. An unfinished head now known as the Athenaeum type, painted in Philadelphia in 1796, served as his prototype for numerous bust-length portraits of Washington that Stuart made in his Boston studio over the next 30 years. Stuart painted RISD’s variant for former Massachusetts senator Jonathan Mason. In it, he softened and rounded Washington’s face, simplified the black bow at the end of his queue, or braid, and loosely rendered his coat and shirt ruffle. In 1922, the Museum solicited public contributions to purchase the portrait from Mason’s descendants.