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Member of the Washington Family
James Peale (born Chestertown, MD 1749-died Philadelphia, PA 1831)
ca. 1795
- Medium
- watercolor on ivory
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- sight 2 x 1 5/8 in. (5.1 x 4.1 cm) oval
- Culture
- Washington
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Family lore holds that this brooch pin features the portrait of an illegitimate son of George Washington, fathered when Washington was eighteen years old. Washington lent financial support to neighbors and members of his extended family at Mount Vernon, making it difficult to determine how accurate that legend is. One theory is that this is the likeness of Corbin Washington (1765-1799), who married Hannah Lee, a daughter of Richard Henry Lee, in whose family this miniature descended.
