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Lot Essay
In 1836, French engraver Jean Nicolas Laugier (1785-1875) commissioned his compatriot Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) to paint a portrait of George Washington as the basis for a print. The work offered here is undoubtedly Cogniet’s original as it is the most similar in detail to Laugier’s print and its provenance places it in the same milieu as the execution and sale of the print. The records of the Frick Art Reference Library include an example attributed to Cogniet that was noted to be the original at the time of its sale in 2006 (Frick Art Reference Library, no. 521-1d; sold, Bonham’s, New York, May 24, 2006, lot 1006). However, this work features Washington’s trousers darker than the waistcoat, a horse with a short-haired dark mane and dark tail, and its background lacks ships. In contrast, the work offered here and Laugier’s print both depict trousers the same color or hue as the waistcoat, a horse with white flowing mane and white tail and a background that includes ships at anchor.
Laugier travelled to America in 1836 with the express intention of executing a print of George Washington. He examined various works by Gilbert Stuart, Charles Willson Peale and John Trumbull, and chose Stuart’s replica of the Lansdowne portrait of Washington, then owned by Mr. and Mrs. Hezekiah Beers Pierrepont and now at the Brooklyn Museum, as the basis for the head, although he later advertised that the model was Stuart’s more well-known Athenaeum portrait. Cogniet was then commissioned to execute the painting, which must have been completed by December of that year when Laugier announced he had begun engraving. The same month, portrait painter and publisher, James Herring (1794-1867), announced that he had arranged the commission and solicited subscriptions for a limited print-run. By June 1939, the print was finished and on display at Herring’s Apollo Gallery at 410 Broadway (Commercial Advertiser, December 10, 1836, p. 3, December 31, 1836 and June 25, 1839, p. 3). Writing in the 1850s, Washington’s adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis (1781-1857), remarked that in Cogniet’s painting and Laugier’s engraving, “…the delineation of the limbs is the most perfect extant” (Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington (Philadelphia, 1861), p. 481; see also George C. Mason, The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart (New York, 1879), pp. 98-99).
As recorded in the records of the Frick Art Reference Library, the earliest known owner of this portrait was Thomas W. Strong (1817-1892). Later a prominent publisher, Strong trained as a printer, engraver and lithographer under Robert Henry Elton (1806-1863) in the 1830s (“Death of an Old Publisher, Apoplexy Carries off Thomas W. Strong, Pioneer in American Lithography,” New York Herald, December 31, 1892, p. 10). Elton’s establishments on Nassau Street and Division Street were in close proximity to Chatham Square, where James Herring ran his portrait painting business, and the Apollo Gallery, where the print and possibly this painting were exhibited in 1839. Working in the same industry and geographic area, Strong probably acquired the painting after it was no longer needed by Laugier. After Strong’s death in Newark, New Jersey, the painting became the possession of Mrs. Edith Whitman Soutar (née Stone) (b. 1874), from whom William Macbeth acquired the portrait in November 1931. It was purchased from Macbeth by Frances Payne (Bingham) Bolton (1885-1977), the first woman elected to the US Congress from Ohio. Evident by her acquisition of the portrait offered here, Mrs. Bolton had a particular interest in America’s first President and was instrumental in the government’s purchase of lands across the Potomac from Mount Vernon, thus preserving the vista enjoyed by Washington.
Laugier travelled to America in 1836 with the express intention of executing a print of George Washington. He examined various works by Gilbert Stuart, Charles Willson Peale and John Trumbull, and chose Stuart’s replica of the Lansdowne portrait of Washington, then owned by Mr. and Mrs. Hezekiah Beers Pierrepont and now at the Brooklyn Museum, as the basis for the head, although he later advertised that the model was Stuart’s more well-known Athenaeum portrait. Cogniet was then commissioned to execute the painting, which must have been completed by December of that year when Laugier announced he had begun engraving. The same month, portrait painter and publisher, James Herring (1794-1867), announced that he had arranged the commission and solicited subscriptions for a limited print-run. By June 1939, the print was finished and on display at Herring’s Apollo Gallery at 410 Broadway (Commercial Advertiser, December 10, 1836, p. 3, December 31, 1836 and June 25, 1839, p. 3). Writing in the 1850s, Washington’s adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis (1781-1857), remarked that in Cogniet’s painting and Laugier’s engraving, “…the delineation of the limbs is the most perfect extant” (Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington (Philadelphia, 1861), p. 481; see also George C. Mason, The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart (New York, 1879), pp. 98-99).
As recorded in the records of the Frick Art Reference Library, the earliest known owner of this portrait was Thomas W. Strong (1817-1892). Later a prominent publisher, Strong trained as a printer, engraver and lithographer under Robert Henry Elton (1806-1863) in the 1830s (“Death of an Old Publisher, Apoplexy Carries off Thomas W. Strong, Pioneer in American Lithography,” New York Herald, December 31, 1892, p. 10). Elton’s establishments on Nassau Street and Division Street were in close proximity to Chatham Square, where James Herring ran his portrait painting business, and the Apollo Gallery, where the print and possibly this painting were exhibited in 1839. Working in the same industry and geographic area, Strong probably acquired the painting after it was no longer needed by Laugier. After Strong’s death in Newark, New Jersey, the painting became the possession of Mrs. Edith Whitman Soutar (née Stone) (b. 1874), from whom William Macbeth acquired the portrait in November 1931. It was purchased from Macbeth by Frances Payne (Bingham) Bolton (1885-1977), the first woman elected to the US Congress from Ohio. Evident by her acquisition of the portrait offered here, Mrs. Bolton had a particular interest in America’s first President and was instrumental in the government’s purchase of lands across the Potomac from Mount Vernon, thus preserving the vista enjoyed by Washington.