art museum gallery : Paintings of Martha Washington

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Well, I hesitate to dip into this discussion, but we just can't ignore paintings of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (1731-1802). Martha was painted more than any other 18th century woman in America during her lifetime.

On February 4, 2009, the Washington Post published a portrait of Martha painted by Michael J. Deas as the cover of a 2005 book about Martha by Patricia Brady, a Tulane PhD. Because Martha burned her correspondence with her husband at his death; there are scant primary sources to use as tools to reconstruct her feelings & thoughts.

The recent, ahistorical portrait of Martha prompted Post writer, Brigid Schulte, to announce that Martha was actually "hot," and not the "frumpy, dumpy, plump old lady" we all picture. She even added the tantalizing revelation that while George was courting her, Martha had another suitor, a Virginia planter with much greater wealth & stature. In a little-known letter, Charles Carter wrote to his brother about what a beauty she was & how he hoped to "arouse a flame in her breast."

The titillating newspaper article & Brady's book are geared toward 21st century sensibilities and commercial sales, not toward 18th century expectations or realities.

The new portrait was based on CSI-type age regression from the James Peale (1749-1831) miniature portrait of Martha by forensic anthropologists at the Louisiana State University Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services, or FACES, Laboratory.

Deas painted the face that the lab came up with onto an imaginary perfect body of a 21st-century-anorexic-top-model-type completely transforming the "the mousy, fat widow that dashing and virile Washington married only for money."

The 18th century ideal looked for women with soft, plump faces & graceful arms extending from softly sloping shoulders held well back giving the body an elegant serpentine S line. Today's female ideal is one with a thin face & sharp facial features & hands, and protruding collarbones announcing an athletic, buff body type.

Reactions to the portrait of the new Martha-makeover may be even more startling. Brady states that the normally controlled (exceptions are allowed here for his interactions with the newly-married young Lafayette & Sally Fairfax, the wife of his best friend) George was "clearly sexually excited by her" (Martha, that is). Brady based her insight on 2 letters from George that escaped Martha's fire. Both were written as he commanded the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. The warm letters addressed her as "My dearest."

Edward Lengel, senior editor at the extraordinary primary source Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia, discreetly declared that "she was quite a beautiful woman in her younger years, and Washington loved her deeply." Lengel recently discovered a rare letter from Martha to George in 1777, where she calls him "My Love."

"There's enough circumstantial evidence really to show that they were very close," Lengel genteely noted. James Flexner, an earlier 20th century Washington biographer, called Martha's letters "an incoherent jumble of affection and gossip."

The Mount Vernon Ladies Association, always keen managers of the Washington legacy, bought the Deas portrait & promptly enshrined it with a reproduction of Martha's wedding gown in their education center, a respectable distance from the 18th century house.

Emily Shapiro, curator at Mount Vernon, took the Post reporter on a tour of the Martha images at Mount Vernon explaining that most are of "as one historian describes it, of the double-chinned Old Mother Hubbard variety." Shapiro theorized that the dowdy white-haired images, painted shortly after both George & Martha had died, fostered a sense of legitimacy for the fledgling country.

The paintings on this post will be only those painted during Martha's lifetime.

Shapiro showed the Washington Post reporter the case displaying Martha's reproduction once sparkly purple wedding shoes, which she and Mount Vernon Executive Director James Rees described as a little sassy & definitely "over the top" for the time, which is exactly the way that I would describe the new Deas portrait. But perhaps that is because I am a frumpy, dumpy, plump, double-chinned Old Mother Hubbard variety of historian.

This is the biography of Martha Dandridge Custis Washington from the White House website.

"I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else, there is certain bounds set for me which I must not depart from..." So in one of her surviving letters, Martha Washington confided to a niece that she did not entirely enjoy her role as first of First Ladies. She once conceded that "many younger and gayer women would be extremely pleased" in her place; she would "much rather be at home."

But when George Washington took his oath of office in New York City on April 30, 1789, and assumed the new duties of President of the United States, his wife brought to their position a tact and discretion developed over 58 years of life in Tidewater Virginia society.

Oldest daughter of John and Frances Dandridge, she was born June 2, 1731, on a plantation near Williamsburg. Typical for a girl in an 18th-century family, her education was almost negligible except in domestic and social skills, but she learned all the arts of a well-ordered household and how to keep a family contented.

As a girl of 18--about five feet tall, dark-haired, gentle of manner--she married the wealthy Daniel Parke Custis. Two babies died; two were hardly past infancy when her husband died in 1757.

From the day Martha married George Washington in 1759, her great concern was the comfort and happiness of her husband and children. When his career led him to the battlegrounds of the Revolutionary War and finally to the Presidency, she followed him bravely. Her love of private life equaled her husband's; but, as she wrote to her friend Mercy Otis Warren, "I cannot blame him for having acted according to his ideas of duty in obeying the voice of his country." As for herself, "I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances."

At the President's House in temporary capitals, New York and Philadelphia, the Washingtons chose to entertain in formal style, deliberately emphasizing the new republic's wish to be accepted as the equal of the established governments of Europe. Still, Martha's warm hospitality made her guests feel welcome and put strangers at ease. She took little satisfaction in " formal compliments and empty ceremonies" and declared that "I am fond of only what comes from the heart." Abigail Adams, who sat at her right during parties and receptions, praised her as "one of those unassuming characters which create Love and Esteem."

In 1797 the Washingtons said farewell to public life and returned to their beloved Mount Vernon, to live surrounded by kinfolk, friends, and a constant stream of guests eager to pay their respects to the celebrated couple. Martha's daughter Patsy had died, as had her son Jack at 26, but Jack's children figured in the household. After George Washington died in 1799, Martha assured a final privacy by burning their letters; she died of "severe fever" on May 22, 1802. Both lie buried at Mount Vernon, where Washington himself had planned an unpretentious tomb for them.

1757 John Wollaston (1710-1775) Martha Dandridge (Daniel Parke Custis) (Mrs George Washington) Washington and Lee. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Washington and Lee for an accurate image.)

1789-96 Edward Savage (1761-1817). The Washington Family (detail). National Gallery of Art. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the national gallery for an accurate image.)

1790 Edward Savage (1761-1817). Martha Washington. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Adams National Historic Site, Quincey, Massachusettes. (Reproduction at FoundersofAmerica.com. Contact the Adams site for an accurate image.)

1791-2 Archibald Robertson (1765-1835). Martha Washington. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact CWF for an accurate image.)

1793 John Trumbull (1756-1843). Martha Washington. National Museum of Amrican History, Washington D.C. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the museum for an accurate image.)

1795 Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Martha Washington. Virginia Historical Society, Richmond. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the VHS for an accurate image.)

1796 Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828). Martha Washington. National Portrait Gallery and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (Reproduction at bestpriceart.com. Contact the portrait gallery for an accurate image.)

1796 James Peale ( 1749-1831). Martha Washington. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact Mount Vernon for an accurate image.)

1796 James Sharples (1751-1811). Martha Washington. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce.)

1800 Martha Washington. National Portrait Gallery. (This depiction is from a lecture slide. Do not copy or reproduce. Contact the museum for an accurate image.)