University of Virginia Library

Gilbert Stuart Painting Donated;
One Of Famous Washington Series

By Mark Pirrung
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

An extremely valuable portrait of
George Washington by Gilbert Stuart was
recently donated to the University by
George Rives and his mother Mrs. F.
Bayard Rives of Mt. Kisko, New York
and received and hung in the Mount
Vernon Room of the Alderman Library
on November 5.

The painting which is the eleventh in a
series of approximately 100 portraits of
Washington by Gilbert Stuart and was
appraised for the insurance firm of Mr.
Rives at $125,000.

Mr. Rives wrote his offer of the gift to
University President Edgar Shannon in
late September when he announced that it was
his wish that the painting should be the
property of the University. At the time the
portrait was on loan to the Sterling and
Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown,
Mass.

The painting may be seen in the Mount
Vernon Room on the second floor of Alderman
Library, Rare Books Division. The room is the
office of Walter Barret and a direct copy of the
library of George Washington's home at Mount
Vernon.

The portrait, a bust profile of the right side
of the face, officially known as the "Vaughn
type," was the original property of Mrs. Hugh
Thompson (nee Maria Ball Carter), a grand
niece of General Washington.

She later married George Tucker, who in
1825 was made Professor of Moral Philosophy
and a member of the University's original
faculty by Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Tucker
moved into Pavilion IX on the awn from his
Washington home and brought with him the
Gilbert Stuart portrait.

The painting left the grounds in 1845 when
Mr. Tucker retired and descended through five
generations of Riveses until it returned to the
University two weeks ago.

The painting is of the Vaughn type, so
named for the buyer of the original Stuart
portrait which was transformed into an
engraving in a biography of Mr. Washington.
John Vaughn ordered two portraits of the right
side of the face to be sent to his brother Samuel
Vaughn, an engraver in London.

Gilbert Stuart painted 14 variations on the
Vaughn type, of which the University now
holds number eleven, and then painted a series
of nearly eighty more, some full length
portraits.

It is assumed by experts that Mr.
Washington only sat for the first portrait and
the others were copied from one another. The
similarity of the dress of the General in
portraits nine, ten, and eleven indicates that the
three were painted simultaneously.