George Washington in Russia
June 12, 2007 – 2:50 pm Posted by Shane Richey
The Museum’s portrait of George Washington by Charles Willson Peale has been on an “around the world” tour for the past several months, most recently in Beijing and Shanghai, China, and is about to experience “Washington crossing the Baltic” in the words of Liz Workman who is coordinating travel between China and Russia. The painting is part of a ground-breaking exhibition organized by the Guggenheim Museum in partnership with the Terra Foundation for American Art, entitled, Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation. It is the first historical survey of American painting to be shown in either China or Russia and in the fall the exhibition will also travel to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain after it closes at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Among the iconic images in American Art, Peale’s portrait was commissioned, possibly by Washington himself, as a gift to a French nobleman, the Marquis de Chastellux, serving under General Rochambeau. The Marquis is considered one of the key strategists at the Battle of Yorktown as indicated by the French naval ships blockading the harbor in the lower left section of the painting. Chastellux also served as translator among Washington and the French commanders and became a close, personal friend of the general. Indeed, for most of the past two-hundred plus years George Washington has been living in France, owned until 2004 by descendents of the Marquis. Of course, when the painting finally returns to this country and to Bentonville, it is unlikely we will want him touring any other foreign countries for awhile as the painting takes its place among the master works of the permanent collection.
