A 1795 George Washington Portrait by Gilbert Stuart Leads the Important Americana Auction at Christie’s

Christie’s Important Americana sale will feature a portrait of George Washington (Vaughan type) painted in 1795 by Gilbert Stuart (1755 – 1829). This portrait of George Washington is among the earliest painted by Stuart after the President’s first sitting in the fall of 1795. This sitting was the basis for the portraits known today as the “Vaughan” type, as they were commissioned by John Vaughan, a wine merchant, philanthropist, and long-time treasurer and librarian of the American Philosophical Society. The artist has rendered his Impressionistic hallmark brushstrokes for this painting of Washington. Only 14 examples of this type are known today. The portrait is the Philips-Brixey example owned by Nathaniel Philips (1726 – 1808) or his son Samuel Philips (1762 – 1824). Nathaniel Philips and his brother John founded the Manchester firm of J. and N. Philips, one of the largest textile manufacturers in 18th-century England. 

Another notable Americana lot is a painting by Ammi Phillips (1788 – 1865). Phillips was born in Connecticut and lived anonymously for almost five decades. The 500 or so works now attributed to him were once thought to have been produced by several different artists based on the disparate styles observed. The characteristics of his portraits developed with the artist over several decades. Mrs. Ruth (Haynes) Palmer (1797 – 1873) is an oil on canvas depiction of the sitter painted in 1818 by Phillips. Ruth Haynes Palmer was the daughter of John Haynes and Phebe Peck. She married William Palmer in 1816, and they had eight children together. The family had substantial wealth from Palmer’s business ventures, most notably the manufacture of woolen and cotton cloths and railroad projects. Phillips painted Mrs. Palmer as arrestingly beautiful and charming. He used white to depict her dress, a color that was bold, impractical, and expensive for the time, to convey the sitter’s stature. View the complete catalog of the Important Americana auction by visiting Christie’s.