George Washington

Edward Savage · 1793

Medium

Oil on mahogany panel

Original size

47 × 35.9 cm (18 1/2 × 14 1/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Neoclassicism

Edward Savage's 1793 portrait of George Washington carries the quiet authority of a likeness painted from life, capturing the first president with a directness that studio copies of the era rarely achieved. Savage was one of a small group of American painters granted direct sittings with Washington, and that access shows. Where many contemporaries worked from prints or borrowed compositions, Savage rendered his subject with close observation — the set of the jaw, the measured gaze, the restrained palette that suits both the man and the moment. Painted on mahogany panel rather than canvas, the work has an intimacy and solidity that larger, more ceremonial portraits lack. Savage sat with Washington on multiple occasions, and his sustained study of the president informed not only this panel but also his ambitious 1796 family portrait, now at the National Gallery of Art — one of the most reproduced images of Washington in existence. Our hand-painted oil reproduction is made on fine canvas by a skilled artist working from high-resolution reference of the original, matching the tonal depth and warm flesh tones that have kept this portrait compelling for more than two centuries. It is painted in oils, by hand, one at a time — not printed, not mass-produced.