Where to See Gilbert Stuart: Washington’s Face and the Skater Who Came First

The ice began to crack, and William Grant caught hold of Gilbert Stuart’s coattails. At least, that is how the story of their skating expedition was later told. Grant had arrived to sit for a portrait, suggested that the cold day was better spent outside, and ended up needing help back to shore. In The Skater, Stuart repaid him with magnificent composure. The story may be embroidered; the confidence of the painted figure is beyond dispute.

Washington: the gentleman who would rather skate

The 1782 portrait belongs to the National Gallery of Art, where our autumn 2026 check placed it in M-059. Grant moves with his arms folded, a position that makes balance look effortless. Stuart’s first full-length portrait caused a stir at the Royal Academy and helped him establish his own studio. The pose even has a classical ancestor in the Apollo Belvedere, a cast of which stood in Benjamin West’s studio, where Stuart had been working.

The enjoyment lies partly in how much the painting withholds. A stationary spectator receives a passing figure; Grant does not stop and explain himself. Look down at the blades and then back at the folded arms. The shoes depend on a narrow contact with the ice, while the upper body refuses to register any concern. Stuart makes athletic skill function like social assurance. Remember the uncertain origin story, but do not let it reduce the portrait to an illustrated anecdote.

In Sir Joshua Reynolds, dated 1784, another kind of assurance sits still. The president of the Royal Academy holds a snuffbox rather than the expected palette. John Boydell commissioned the portrait as part of a group of painters and engravers. Our autumn 2026 record also places it in M-059. Reynolds rarely sat for other painters, so the small personal object carries particular weight. Stuart gives a professional authority something ordinary to do with his hands.

John Jay opens a door

Success in Britain did not keep Stuart out of debt. He left London for Dublin to escape creditors, then returned to America in 1793 with a particular ambition: to paint George Washington. Getting there required people willing to recommend him. John Jay, painted in 1794, belongs to that chain of introductions. The first chief justice helped Stuart reach the president. At the National Gallery of Art, our autumn 2026 check recorded the portrait in M-062.

Jay’s robe can mislead a quick glance. It refers to his honorary degree from Harvard, while the book under his hand reinforces the claim to learning. Clothing does not simply label his day job. Set his hand beside Reynolds’s snuffbox in your memory: one object makes a public argument, the other permits a private habit to enter the portrait. Neither sitter needs to enact a grand event. Stuart can build an entire social position around a hand and the thing it rests on.

The resulting George Washington, the Vaughan portrait, from 1795, belonged to the London merchant Samuel Vaughan, a friend of the president. It was not on view at our autumn 2026 check. Stuart liked to keep sitters talking, but Washington proved resistant to his conversational methods. Against the red background the head sits high, with a mouth that offers little encouragement. The painter who had made Grant look effortlessly sociable now faced a subject whose reserve was part of the problem.

New York: Washington changes his coat

Technical examination of the Met’s George Washington, begun in 1795, found an alteration with more than decorative consequences. Stuart repainted American brown wool broadcloth so that it resembled the black silk velvet Washington wore on formal occasions. This is the Gibbs-Channing-Avery portrait, named after successive owners, one of Stuart’s related versions of the Vaughan composition. On our autumn 2026 check it was in Gallery 723. A familiar face can make you overlook the work done by the coat.

Imagine the two fabrics beside each other before looking again at the portrait. Wool and velvet offer different accounts of a public man, even when the head remains recognisable. The alteration complicates any account of Stuart as a manufacturer of identical Washingtons. The surviving picture contains a choice that he revised. Its layers hold two presentations of the same person, although only one was intended to remain visible.

Boston: the portrait Martha never received

Martha Washington wanted portraits of herself and her husband, and persuaded him to sit again in 1796. Stuart left the resulting paintings unfinished and never sent them, despite her requests. The Athenaeum Portrait, recorded here with Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, became the model for many further Washingtons. The practical advantage was obvious: a face taken from life could keep earning without another presidential sitting. For Martha, the painting’s usefulness to Stuart meant an unfulfilled promise.

The image on the one-dollar bill makes this unfinished face feel more complete than it is. Try to set that familiarity aside. The blank areas belong to the encounter as surely as the painted features; they record where the commission stopped. Comparing it with the dressed and finished Washington at the Met changes the question from how the president looked to how much of him a particular picture needed to supply.

Washington’s National Gallery offers the most concentrated starting point in this selection: plan time for Grant, Reynolds and Jay, checking their records again before your visit. For the Boston portrait, search by its full title rather than simply asking for a Stuart Washington. These faces recur often enough that the name of the sitter alone will not get you to the painting you came for.