Use of Art Elements in Athenaeum Painting of Washington on Dollar Bill
The Search for the Portrait that Belonged to Kittel Pages at The Face Of Bach
The Queens College Lecture of March 21, 2001 - Page 5 - Codifying my Modus Operandi - Part 2 - The George Washington Iconography
The Face Of Bach
This remarkable photo is not a figurer generated composite; the original of the Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment, all that remains of the portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach that belonged to his pupil Johann Christian Kittel, is resting gently on the surface of the original of the 1748 Elias Gottlob Haussmann Portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach. 
1748 Elias Gottlob Haussmann Portrait, Courtesy of William H. Scheide, Princeton, New Jersey
Weydenhammer Portrait Fragment, ca. 1733, Artist Unknown, Courtesy of the Weydenhammer Descendants
Photograph by Teri Noel Towe
©Teri Noel Towe, 2001, All Rights Reserved
The Search for the Portrait that Belonged to Kittel
The Queens College Lecture of March 21, 2001
Page 5
Codifying my Modus Operandi - Part ii
The George Washington Iconography
Problems of command over the image mandate a discussion of the apparent incongruities that tin can effect from the collision of "official" and "individual" portraiture. The all-time examples for such a give-and-take, in fact for the discussion of the challenges posed by forensic iconographical investigations in full general, are the portraits of George Washington, not only considering he sat frequently and usually patiently for those who wanted to pigment his portrait, just also because the depictions are extremely well documented. The Washington iconography encapsulates all of the problems and all of the variables.
The epitome on the left is a detail from the so-chosen Virginia Regiment Portrait, painted on commission from Washington by Charles Wilson Peale in 1772, when Washington was 40. It is the earliest known known depiction of him "from life". It was for him a favorite paradigm, and the original painting hung in a prominent place in Mount Vernon thoughout his lifetime. It also shows Washington while he notwithstanding had some teeth in his jaws. The image on the correct is a detail from the and so-chosen Athenaeum Portrait that Gilbert Stuart painted from life in 1796, a portrait that he deliberately never finished, and a portrait that he kept and used as the model for almost every portrait he painted of Washington for the balance of his long career. (I say "well-nigh" because the so-called Lansdowne Portrait, which has been in the news recently, is also a direct life portrait and the progenitor of a number of exemplars of that blazon.) By the fourth dimension of those 1796 sittings for Gilbert Stuart, Washington was 64, was toothless, and was contending with a new and uncomfortable set of faux teeth. The Athenaeum portrait, of course, is the Washington of the I-Dollar-Bill, and, as early equally the 1820s, it was beingness described as the Washington that everybody thought of and copied past all and sundry to satisfy a seemingly insatiable audience. Pretend, for a moment, that you had never seen the Virginia Regiment Portrait before, that the only documented prototype that you had was the Athenaeum Portrait, and that you did not know that Stuart had commented that Washington'south uncomfortable and ill plumbing equipment false teeth had distorted the shape of his mouth. You are brought the Virginia Regiment Portrait to authenticate, and the just provenance that you accept is v generations of family unit tradition that the portrait was a wedding present from one of Washington'due south stride-grandchildren. Non only practise you have to debate with a face that is a quarter of a century younger, but too you lot take to contend with a face up that has a unlike dental configuration. If that were the fact situation, I wonder how oftentimes the knowledgeable might dismiss the Virginia Regiment Portrait equally not accurate.
And since nosotros're on the subject, a comparison of the Athenaeum Portrait with the version to exist found on the One Dollar Nib yields some interesting results, likewise:
First of all, the image on the One Dollar Nib has been "flopped", indicating that, every bit is so often the instance with portrait prints, the viewer is seeing what the sitter would see, looking into a mirror. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the Treasury Department engravers have given the First President a touch of a face elevator, a nip hither and a constrict there, to brand him look a scrap younger, and they also have made his mouth and jaw expect a little less "stretched" than information technology is in the Athenaeum Portrait. Here's another intriguing example:
In the John Ramage miniature, a portrait which Washington deputed as a emblem to give to Martha in the autumn of 1789, the year in which his sole remaining tooth was extracted, the shape of the oral cavity graphically reflects the Father of Our Country'due south toothless country. But he did non find anything wrong with the depiction, which Martha kept and treasured for the rest of her life.
However, John Ramage was non the only creative person for whom Washington sabbatum on October 3, 1789. We know from his diary that, after a constitutional, he sat for Mme. de Brehan.
This is the heroic, idealized profile that Mme. de Brehan produced from the sitting with Washington that was held on the same day equally the Ramage sitting.
No matter how familiar with Washington'southward physiognomy, anyone who sees the 2 images side by side and is unaware that both depict George Washington likely would think y'all daft if y'all asserted that not only do they draw the same individual but besides that they were drawn from life, on the aforementioned day.
Nevertheless, careful report shows that, apart from Mme. de Brehan's assart for Washington's toothless state, the same charateristic anatomical details, the ones that make Washington's face his, are very much in testify, and that they are accurately depicted in both images. These characteristics include the Full general's mild underbite, the unique curvation of the nose, his distinctive, somewhat bulbous left eye, and the unusual folds of the drooping left eyelid.
I uncertainty that you will be surprised to learn that Washington was pleased with the results of Madame de Brehan's labors, too. The accuracy of the rendering of Washington's profile becomes of fifty-fifty greater interest when one compares Mme. de Brehan's rendering of the Starting time President'due south profile with the i done seven years later past the British creative person, James Sharples:
Information technology then happens that i of the exemplars of the Sharples profile, the terminal portrait for which Washington sabbatum, has come down with a testimonial letter of the alphabet written past the General's step-granddaughter, who imparts important factual data about the accuracy of the paradigm. Merely, even without the information that Nelly Parke Custis provides, most importantly that the General apparently had finally found a set of false teeth that fit him properly and besides that Sharples took down the profile mechanically, using a physiognotrace, careful study reveals that, yes, these two profiles are essentially accurate depictions of the same man. Furthermore, the comparision indicates that either Mme. de Brehan did a spectacular job of mentally restoring the teeth to the President'due south jaws for the purpose of her heroic and idealized profile or the President slipped in a set of imitation "choppers" between the Ramage sitting and hers.
As it happens, President Washington sat for his portrait a third time in October of 1789. He was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and, while visiting Harvard College, he sabbatum for Edward Savage. The resulting portrait in oils, which was finished and dated the following year, was described past the then president of Harvard College as the about accurate depiction that he had always seen:
This wonderful image makes for an interesting comparison with the Ramage miniature, doesn't it?
If the General had been fitted with a full set of dentures past the time that he sat for these portraits, he does not announced to have had them in his oral fissure on either occasion, does he?
The sittings for the Harvard portrait, incidentally, provided the basis for Savage's masterpiece, the group portrait of the Washingtons, Martha's ii grandchildren, and the President'southward manservant and confidant, Willy Lee. The awe-inspiring canvass, a unique and boggling constructing of the private and the public aspects of George Washington, was unveiled in Philadelphia on Washington'southward 64th birthday, February 22, 1796:
Washington liked the issue well enough that, two years later, when Brutal and his colleague Daniel Edwin announced the publication of a stipple engraving of the painting, he bought four of them, framed:
And finally, a group of portraits from 1794 and 1795, when Washington was 62 and 63, respectively.
Outset, let us juxtapose ii all too rarely encountered portraits of Washington, portraits that were taken from life within weeks of each other in 1794. On the left, a pastel portrait by Williams, for which Washington sat, a touch grudgingly, to satisfy a request from the Masonic Temple in Alexandria, Virginia, of which he had been 1000 Master. On the right, a portrait in oils by Adolf Ulrich Wertmüller, who later a successful stint as a court painter to Gustav III of Sweden, painted portraits at the court of Louis XVI, where he received item praise for a portrait of Marie Antoinette. His patrons, and thus his income, disappeared with the onset of the Reign of Terror, and he emigrated to the United States, to effort his hand at edifice a clientele among the wealthy former colonists. In the autumn of 1794, Washington sat for Wertmüller, in Philadelphia. Several portraits resulted, of which this one, now in the Philadelphia Museum of Fine art, appears to be the earliest.
The juxtaposition of these 2 images has a shattering impact on the viewer. Here are the ii portrait heads, next:
Both depictions are masterpieces of detailed, realistic portraiture. Just Williams was no sycophant and no Uriah Heep, and Wertmüller was not only a magnificent portraitist in the manner of Pompeo Batoni simply also a master ne plus ultra at the subtle application of the Stridex™ Factor. Williams'due south depiction is unflinching, if non vicious, in its accuracy and completeness. To my knowledge, which I confess is not equally exhaustive as it might appear, Williams's is the just portrait of Washington to show the smallpox scars on his nose, and the scar on the left cheek is clearly visible, much more then than it is the vast majority of the portraits, including those by Gilbert Stuart. Wertmüller, on the other hand, accustomed to the demands of temperamental Swedish and French aristocrats and nouveaux riches, "airbrushes" out the scar completely, while still faithfully recording the distinctive contour of the Full general's left cheek. (This contour is distinctive, and can be traced along the border of the calorie-free and shadow in the left facing "three-quarter" portraits like an interstate highway on a route map.) However, Wertmüller, like Williams, includes the mole that Washington had on his right cheek, where the cheek meets the ear lobe. I believe that they are the merely ii artists to show this blemish, simply, to be fair, I have to observe that Washington eventually grew sideburns that were long enough to hide the mole.
There is an intriguing discrepancy between the two portraits which some of you already may have noticed. The eyes appear blue in the Williams pastel and dark-brown in the Wertmüller oil. Cause for alarm? Not really. The written descriptions of Washington do not concord on this point, and that does not surprise me. Heart color can vary to the viewer, in my experience, depending on the available lite.
At kickoff glance, when you run into Wertmüller'southward portraits of Washington, you say to yourself, "That'south Washington?" But, when y'all juxtapose the Wertmüller portrait with the then-chosen Vaughan Portrait by Gilbert Stuart, which dates from 1795 and of which he painted at least 12 exemplars (The one illustrated is the "master" image, now in the National Gallery in Washington, D. C.), information technology is articulate that the aforementioned homo is depicted.
The distinctive elements of Washington'southward physiognomy are clearly and accurately depicted in Wertmüller'southward unjustly neglected portrait. The brushwork is more detailed and more precise than information technology is in Stuart's well loved paintings, but both men accept captured accurately Washington's facial features - the eyelids, the curve of the olfactory organ, the taut lips and the underbite, the distinguishing crease midway between the lower lip and the chin, although I must point out over again that Wertmüller, a court painter to the manor born, an artistic diplomat, "airbrushes" out completely the scar on Washington'due south left cheek, a superb example of an application of the Stridex™ Cistron past a top echelon "portrait painter to the stars". It is piddling wonder, though, that Wertmüller'southward portrait was not well received. Its elegant detail, its purple preciseness, right down to the pilus powder that sullies Washington'south black velevt glaze like a bizarre grade of dandruff, had little appeal in the significantly more egalitarian culture of even the upper classes in the new Commonwealth, which preferred the more than crude hewn, broader brushstroked approach of Gilbert Stuart. Wertmüller'southward portrait reeked of the European and of the monarchical, if you volition, and that subliminal effect was fatal.
In fact, in that location were even a few who complained about the accuracy of the likeness. Washington'due south step-grandson, George Washinton Parke Custis did not think that it could exist a portrait from life, and asked where the protruding lower lip was. I approximate that information technology is all in the eye of the beholder, but the protruding lower lip to me is every bit as much in evidence in Wertmüller's portrait as information technology is in Savage'due south. (Please notation, by the way, the absence of the mole from right cheek in the Savage portrait.)
Before we leave the Wertmüller portraits and Gilbert Stuart's "Vaughan Model" series, let us consider the altogether too casually used terms "replica" and "copy" in the context of these two sets of paintings.
Wertmüller is known to accept made several exemplars of his portrait of Washington. If all of them are as identical every bit the i from Philadelphia and the exemplar from the following twelvemonth that is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, his portraits of Washington could be described accurately every bit duplicates of ane another.
The differences between the 2, at to the lowest degree as far as the depiction of the facial features is concerned, are minimal.
One cannot say the same affair when juxtaposing ane exemplar of the Gilbert Stuart "Vaughan Model" portrait with another:
The right hand exemplar cannot fairly be described as either a "replica" or equally a copy, although it is clearly a close variant of the master image. These subtleties need to be remembered whenever ane is called upon to assess the merits of an alternate version of a known image, or to compare and contrast two versions of the same model or master image, like the two versions of the Elias Gottlob Haussmann portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach, which, every bit far equally I am concerned, clearly are the products of two divide and distinct series of sittings.
At present, yet some other pair of portraits of Washington that date from 1795.
The portrait on the left is the last that was painted from life past Charles Wilson Peale; the portrait on the right is the work of his son, Rembrandt. Both paintings are the upshot of the same serial of sittings, because Washington graciously permitted Peale, who, by 1795, had known Washington for most a quarter of a century, to let iii of his sons paint his portrait at the same time their father did. Once once more, at first glance, the reaction is: "That's the same man?" Once more, a careful comparison of the facial features confirms that both are essentially accurate depictions of the facial feaures of the Father of Our Land. (I say, "essentially", because to varying degrees, the Peales each have downplayed the scar on the left cheek.)
Finally, in that location is the omnipresence problem. The Washington of the Athenaeum Portrait, the Washington of the one dollar bill is the 1 known best to all and sundry, and therefore it is the "official" face of Washington.
Consider this late 19th century popular print of Washington praying, during the bitter winter at Valley Forge:
The face and the hairstyle are that of the Archives Portrait.
Merely, in reality, during the bitter winters at Valley Forge, Washington looked like this. This is the remarkable portrait of Washington afterwards the Boxing of Princeton, that Charles Wilson Peale painted in 1780, when Washington was 48, for the General'south longtime friend, Elias Boudinot:
Grant Woods, i of the greatest American painters of the 20th century and the creator of American Gothic, innately understood the omnipresence phenomenon, and he took full reward of the general public's "bonding" to the Archives-Dollar Bill Washington. When he painted his mildly tongue-in-cheek interpretation of the discredited Parson Weems chestnut about Washington chopping down the cherry tree, Wood gave the child Washington the Athaenaeum face and hair-do:
Now that I have explained only how delicate and how complicated a chore it is to plant the standards that one has to use in assessing the accuracy of the depiction of an private'due south facial features for portrait hallmark purposes, let me finally begin to accost the specific case of Johann Sebastian Bach.
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