George and Martha Washington are back in the Boston MFA
The famous pair of portraits had spent time hanging at the National Portrait Gallery.
George and Martha Washington have made their way back to Boston.
After three years away at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., one of the most famous Museum of Fine Arts pairs is back home in the Art of the Americas Wing.
Gilbert Stuart, a well-known, Rhode Island-born portraitist from the 18th and 19th centuries, painted the Washingtons shortly before George retired from public service. Though Stuart never finished or delivered the portraits, his depiction of Washington has served as the model for many replicas of the first president of the United States, including the image on the one-dollar bill.
Stuart owned both portraits until his death in 1828, after which his heirs gave both paintings to the Boston Athenaeum, which eventually sold them to the MFA.
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