BOGLEWOOD CATALOG.   This catalog records the images of George Washington that were published before his death on 14 December 1799.  

Each print is assigned a unique Boglewood Catalog number.  Where available, an illustration of the print is included, together with identification of the original arttwork upon which its image of Washington is based.

The catalog remains incomplete, because not all Washington engravings have been documented and some offer no clear evidence of their date.  Additions and corrections from readers are welcomed, as well as images not yet illustrated here.

WASHINGTON THE CELEBRITY.  For 25 years--more than half his adult life--George Washington was the most celebrated figure in the world.  The fame created a huge demand for pictures of him.  Artists and engravers responded by creating dozens of images of the man. 

Some of the images are fictional inventions, but most of them are based directly or indirectly on one of the oil paintings, watercolors or drawings that Washington posed for during his life.

WASHINGTON THE SITTER. Washington became a willing sitter for artists, a fact he commented on with amusement (in a letter to Francis Hopkinson, 16 May 1785):

"I am so hackneyed to the touches of the Painter's pencil, that I am now altogether at their beck, and sit like Patience on a monument, whilst they are delineating the lines of my face.  It is a proof among many others, of what habit and custom can effect.  At first I was as impatient at the request, and as restive under the operation, as a colt is of the saddle.  The next time I submitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing; now, no dray moves more readily to the Thill [hitching shaft], than I do to the Painter's Chair."

Washington ultimately sat for more than two dozen artists, several of them more than once.  The resulting likenesses were then often used by the artists to create multiple portraits, sometimes in variations on the original pose.  Those portraits were in turn copied by other artists and by many printmakers. 

1795