Imagining George Washington

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Imagining George Washington
The Boglewood Catalog of Images Published during his Life

Image Sources: John Trumbull

JOHN TRUMBULL, who was son of the governor of Connecticut, was appointed Washington's aide-de-camp in July 1775 and

served under him in the Boston campaign. Washington sat for Trumbull on numerous occasions, beginning in1790.

Trumbull Type A

Oil on canvas (1780)

While in London in 1780 to study under the the expatriate American painter Benjamin West, Trumbull painted a portrait of Washington from his own memory of him, but perhaps helped by his own copy of a Washington life portrait by Charles Wilson Peale. Trumbull's portrait, which depicts Washington overlooking the Hudson River, was sold to a Dutch banker who took it to Amsterdam. Its present whereabouts or existence is unknown.

Print based on Trumbull Type A
Boglewood 1701	Boglewood 1702	Boglewood 1703	Boglewood 1704
Boglewood 1705	Boglewood 1706	Boglewood 1707	Boglewood 1708
Boglewood 1709	Boglewood 1710	Boglewood 1711	Boglewood 1712
Boglewood 1713	Boglewood 1714	Boglewood 1715

Trumbull Type B

Oil on canvas.
90.5" x 63" ( 1792)

In 1791 the city government of Charleston, South Carolina, commissioned Trumbull to paint a portrait of Washington, and Washington sat for it in the following year. The city declined the resulting painting, however, because of disappointment that it celebrated Washington's victory at Trenton, rather than his recent visit to Charleston. The painting later passed to the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati. When the Society dissolved, five prominent individuals, including Trumbull's father, purchased the painting for Yale College, where it remains today.

	Prints based on Trumbull Type B
	Boglewood 1801	Boglewood 1802