Washington: A Life (101 page)

Just as Washington’s postwar years were touched with many intimations of mortality, so Martha had many somber occasions to reflect on life’s brevity. In April 1785 an express messenger arrived at Mount Vernon bearing a double dose of dreadful news for her: her mother, seventy-five-year-old Frances Dandridge, and her last surviving brother, forty-eight-year-old Judge Bartholomew Dandridge, had died within nine days of each other. These deaths lengthened the already-long list of family losses Martha had endured, starting with the demise of her first husband and all four of her children. The death of her younger brother meant that, among her seven siblings, only her youngest sister, Betsy, was still alive. Like the Washingtons, the Dandridge clan seemed doomed to suffer untimely deaths.

The following year George Washington suffered two tremendous blows. He had always delighted in the bright young men in his military family, often finding it easier to befriend these protégés than his peers, and he had felt special warmth for Lieutenant Colonel Tench Tilghman, who handled his business matters in Baltimore. “I have often repeated to you that there are few men in the world to whom I am more sincerely attached by inclination than I am to you,” Washington had assured him.
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Genial and unassuming, Tilghman had entered fully into Washington’s confidence, and the latter was grief-stricken when the younger man died at age forty-one in April 1786. In a mighty tribute, Washington told Jefferson that his former aide had “as fair a reputation as ever belonged to a human character,” and he speculated that he mourned the death more keenly than anyone outside of Tilghman’s own family.
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Perhaps more consequential for America’s future was the demise of General Nathanael Greene at forty-three. Just as Washington and Greene had seen eye to eye on war-related matters, so they had viewed the country’s postwar turmoil with similar apprehension. Like Washington, Greene had developed a federal perspective and feared that the total autonomy of the states would culminate in feuding and anarchy. As he warned Washington, “Many people secretly wish that every state should be completely independent and that, as soon as our public debts are liquidated, that Congress should be no more—a plan that would be as fatal to our interest at home as ruinous to it abroad.”
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Unfortunately, Greene’s personal finances were in no less disorderly a state than those of the country at large: he had accumulated such heavy debts guaranteeing contracts for the southern army that it gave him “much pain and preyed heavily upon my spirits.”
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He also revealed to Washington in August 1784 that for two months he had experienced a “dangerous and disagree[able] pain” in his chest, which sounds like heart disease.
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In June 1786, while at his estate near Savannah, Georgia, he was seized at the table with a “violent pain in his eye and head,” followed by his death a few days later.
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Washington mourned Greene’s death for many months. Beyond personal grief, he knew that the country had lost a man cut out for bigger things. He had counted on Greene as a political ally and kindred spirit and said he regretted “the death of this valuable character, especially at this crisis, when the political machine seems pregnant with the most awful events.”
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It seems likely that, had Greene lived, Washington would have chosen him as the first secretary of war in preference to Henry Knox. Greene died in such dire economic straits that Washington volunteered to pay for the education of his son, George Washington Greene. It was yet another example of Washington’s extraordinary generosity in caring for the offspring of friends and family, whatever his own financial stringency.

FOR A MAN WHO EMPHASIZED HIS DISCOMFORT when posing for artists, George Washington dedicated an extraordinary amount of time to having his likeness preserved for posterity. As shown by his constant attention to his papers, he guarded his fame with vigilance. Sensitive to charges of self-promotion—charges that seemed to ring in his ears alone—he preferred sitting for artists when he could cite a plausible political excuse for doing so. Such was the case in the late summer of 1783, when Congress commissioned an equestrian statue of him and gave the prestigious assignment to artist Joseph Wright, who had the perfect pedigree to appease Washington’s strict conscience. His mother, Patience Wright, a Quaker sculptor from Philadelphia, specialized in waxwork portraits. While mother and son were based in wartime London, she had patented a unique form of espionage by relaying secret messages to Benjamin Franklin and American politicians at home through messages sealed inside her waxed heads.

After studying with Benjamin West in London, Joseph Wright returned to America and received the coveted commission for the Washington statue. He began with an oil portrait of the general that many deemed “a better likeness of me than any other painter has done,” Washington conceded.
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Washington was then residing at Rocky Hill, outside Princeton, giving him time for this diversion. Protective of his image and afraid of appearing pretentious, Washington rebuffed Wright’s request that he don a Roman toga. As a result, the painting is plain and powerfully realistic, showing a uniformed but unadorned Washington who eschews the standard props of power. Wright caught the weighty toll that the war years had exacted on Washington, whose face is long, gaunt, and devoid of animation; his eyes lack sparkle or luster. The nose is thick and straight and blunter than in earlier portraits. As Washington commented justly about Wright’s style, “His forte seems to be in giving the distinguishing characteristics with more boldness than delicacy.”
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The painting also pinpointed an important quirk of Washington’s face: the lazy right eye that slid off into the corner while the left eye stared straight ahead.

To prepare for the equestrian statue, Wright crafted a life mask of Washington’s face with plaster of paris. Cooperating with artists brought out a certain drollery in Washington, and work on the mask led to a charming comic vignette with Martha Washington. As Washington recalled, the artist “oiled my features over, and, placing me flat upon my back upon a cot, proceeded to daub my face with the plaster. Whilst [I was] in this ludicrous attitude, Mrs. Washington entered the room, and, seeing my face thus overspread with the plaster, involuntarily exclaimed [in alarm]. Her cry excited in me a disposition to smile, which gave my mouth a slight twist … that is now observable in the bust which Wright afterward made.”
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Although Wright constructed the preparatory bust, he never completed the equestrian statue.

Another eminent artist with a special claim to Washington’s time was Robert Edge Pine, who had lived near George William and Sally Fairfax in Bath, England. A vocal supporter of American independence, Pine had consulted the Fairfaxes about a controversial print Pine executed showing the “oppressions and calamities of America” and portraying Washington as the country’s heroic liberator, as George William informed Washington.
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It was a courageous action for an artist with a wife and six daughters and earned him “so many enemies in this selfish nation that he is compelled to go to America to seek bread in his profession.”
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There was no way Washington could reject an artist who kept alive the link with George William and Sally Fairfax.

On April 28, 1785, Pine arrived at Mount Vernon, intending to paint Washington for a grand sequence of works about the American Revolution. Earlier in his life, Washington said, he had been as restive “as a colt is of the saddle” when sitting for artists, but he was now amused at how docile he had become. “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.”
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Pine spent three weeks at Mount Vernon and must have ingratiated himself with the entire family, for Washington agreed to additional portraits of Martha, all four of her grandchildren, and Fanny Bassett.

The most elaborate effort to capture Washington’s image was the brilliant, painstaking work of an illustrious French sculptor. In June 1784 the Virginia legislature decided to commission a statue of Washington “of the finest marble and best workmanship” to grace the rotunda of the new state capitol in Richmond.
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Governor Harrison turned to Jefferson and Franklin in Paris to identify the “most masterly hand” for the job.
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Assuming that a European sculptor would simply work from a painting, Harrison had Charles Willson Peale forward a full-length portrait of Washington. This simplistic conception of the job scarcely anticipated the complex demands of the formidable genius recruited by Jefferson and Franklin: Jean-Antoine Houdon, who was famous for his naturalistic style. The premier sculptor at European courts, he asked for a colossal fee, but Jefferson bargained him down to a thousand guineas.

Jefferson and Franklin artfully persuaded Washington to work with the French sculptor, Jefferson saying that Houdon was “the first statuary in the world” and had excitedly agreed to the assignment. In case Washington didn’t comprehend the high honor involved, Jefferson mentioned that Houdon was currently finishing a statue of Louis XVI and had crafted a celebrated bust of Voltaire. Knowing that Houdon worked with fanatic intensity, Jefferson thought he should prepare Washington for the sculptor’s exhausting demands. Houdon was, Jefferson wrote, “so enthusiastically fond of being the executor of this work that he offers to go himself to America for the purpose of forming your bust from the life, leaving all his business here in the meantime. He thinks that being three weeks with you would suffice to make his model of plaster, with which he will return here, and the work will employ him three years.”
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With two transatlantic crossings ahead of him and a projected absence from Paris of six months, Houdon insisted that Jefferson take out an insurance policy on his life for that time.

Cognizant of Washington’s highly organized existence, Jefferson took a huge risk when he told Washington that, if Franklin concurred in selecting Houdon, “we shall send him over [at once], not having time to ask your permission and await your answer.”
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Fortunately, Houdon’s sailing was delayed for several months due to illness. To ensure that Washington didn’t back out, Jefferson informed him that Houdon had turned down an assignment from Catherine the Great of Russia to sculpt Washington, “which he considers as promising the brightest chapter of his history.”
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In a follow-up letter, Franklin said that, since the Europeans despaired of ever coaxing Washington across the ocean, they needed an excellent bust by Houdon to supply his place.

The only way that Washington could feel comfortable with such royal attention was to remind everyone that he was a purely passive recipient of the honor. Writing to Houdon, he stressed that, although the commission was “not of my seeking, I feel the most agreeable and grateful sensations.”
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On Sunday night, October 2, 1785, Houdon made a dramatic entrance at Mount Vernon, pulling up to the dock at eleven P.M. Washington was already in bed when the household was roused by the famous Frenchman, three young assistants, and an interpreter. In his diary, Washington pointedly noted that Houdon had come from nearby Alexandria, implying that he could easily have waited until morning instead of pouncing upon him at night. Anyone who knew Washington’s rigid daily schedule and stern sense of decorum would have avoided this faux pas. A room was hastily prepared for these newcomers babbling in an exotic tongue.

The conscientious Houdon had brought along calipers and, when he got to work, proceeded to make meticulous measurements of Washington’s body. He also asked if he could shadow Washington on his daily rounds and study his face and movements in social interactions. During the next two weeks he even attended a funeral with Washington and took part in the wedding of George Augustine Washington and Fanny Bassett. It reveals a good deal about Houdon’s genius that the most expressive moment for him came when Washington flared up indignantly as he haggled over a pair of horses; always a tough bargainer, Washington thought the other trader was asking too much. During this sudden flash of anger, Houdon thought he spied the inner steel in Washington’s nature.

Methodical in his own habits, Washington was naturally fascinated by the systematic effort that Houdon poured into each step of the artistic process. On October 6 the Frenchman began working on a terra-cotta bust that was likely a preliminary step in creating the full-length sculpture. The bust may have been dried in a Mount Vernon oven ordinarily reserved for baking. Houdon gave it as a gift to Washington, who treasured it in his private study for the rest of his life. Many people credited it as being the best likeness of him ever done. To the extent possible, Houdon dispensed with artistic conventions and pared down the bust to essential truths about Washington, making him life-size and lifelike. The sculpted face is strong and commanding, and the skin smooth, without the crags time later carved into the cheeks. As Washington turns his head, his shrewdly appraising eyes seem to scan the far horizon. Washington’s expression is forceful, his determination evident in his narrow gaze, matched by the muscular strength of his shoulders. Because his hair isn’t fluffed out at the sides, the bust accentuates the hard, lean strength of his face. Houdon captured both the aggressive and the cautious sides of Washington, held in perfect equipoise.

On October 10 Houdon moved on to preparing the plaster of paris for the life mask. Washington was so riveted by this procedure that he made an extended diary entry about it, describing how Houdon sifted the plaster until it obtained the consistency of thick cream, then mixed it with water and beat the combination with an iron spoon. The sculptor himself covered Washington’s face with wet plaster in the few minutes before it began to harden and inserted a pair of quills in his nostrils for breathing. Nelly Custis never forgot her fright when she saw Washington laid out like a corpse in a morgue: