In the fall of 1795, President George Washington, then 63 years old, sat for a portrait by Gilbert Stuart, the American artist from Rhode Island who became best known for his presidential portraits. This particular likeness was commissioned by John Vaughan, a British-born wine merchant and librarian of the American Philosophical Society, who lived in Philadelphia. After Stuart was finished with the "Vaughan portrait," he produced 13 other copies of it. The original "Vaughan" portrait is now part of the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, which also owns an additional copy. The other versions are held by other major American museums, including two at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, Harvard University and the University of Virginia. Just four are privately owned.
Now, one of the Met's two "Vaughan-type" portraits is headed to auction at Christie's on January 19, 2024. It has been dubbed by historians as the "Philips-Brixey" portrait, named for its first and last owners. The work appears to be exactly copied from the original Vaughan commission. This painting was first purchased by the Philips family, a British family who made their fortune from the textile industry by founding J. & N. Philips and Company in 1747.
The portrait was kept in the Philips family by descent for well over a century until it passed from British art dealer Frank Sabin and then American art dealer Joseph Duveen to its next owner Richard De Wolfe Brixey, president of the Kerite Insulated Wire and Cable Company, in New York by 1924. He bequeathed the work to the Metropolitan Museum of Art upon his death in 1943. The Met has owned the work for the past 80 years and is now deaccessioning the portrait to benefit their acquisition fund. The Met also owns an additional "Vaughan-type" Washington portrait (above) from the same year as the Philips-Brixey version, as well as an "Athenaeum type" portrait from 1803.
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The Gilbert Stuart "Athenaeum-type" portrait of George Washington is considered the most iconic and well-known likeness of the first president. The first version was painted in 1796, and the image has been used for the engraving of the United States $1 bill since 1869.
The Philips-Brixey portrait carries a pre-auction estimate of $1.5-2 million when it goes to auction at Christie's as part of its 'Important Americana' sale on January 19, 2024. This estimate seems to be a bit conservative: in 2018, another Stuart "Vaughan-type" portrait of George Washington sold at Christie's as part of Peggy and David Rockefeller's collection for $11.5 million, against a pre-auction estimate of $800,000-1,200,000.
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However, this is not the only important George Washington portrait at auction on January 19. Also on that day, Sotheby's is selling a significant portrait by Charles Willson Peale. Washington sat for this painting in the fall of 1795 in Philadelphia. Peale, who had painted multiple works of Washington in action as a military hero, only painted this work of Washington as president. He made just three copies from the original (which is in the New-York Historical Society's collection), making this copy very rare. It has a pre-auction estimate of $2-3 million. Peale's George Washington at Princeton previously sold at Christie's in 2006 for $21.2 million.
