Wendy Bellion, a professor of American art history at the University of Delaware and author of “Iconoclasm in New York,” about attacks on British monuments during the American Revolution, said it is often difficult to say who vandalized artworks. For example, she said, little is known about the identity of the mob that tore down King George III’s statue on Bowling Green in 1776, an act that Washington distanced himself from.
Actually after the war, Bellion said, Washington became quite popular in England — “a rock star,” she said, among his former wartime adversaries, including King George.
The forensic analysis of the painting finally took Soltis and MacDonald-Korth to Paris, where with help from specialists at the Louvre, they determined that, aside from the overpainting, the brushstrokes and the character of the paint used were in line with works already embraced as by Peale.
The origin story of the painting, some of which was known but had large gaps, also came together through their research, the experts said.
The original portrait had been commissioned by Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council so that, in the words of the council, “the contemplation of it may excite others to tread in the same glorious and disinterested steps which lead to public happiness and private honor.”
Anna O. Marley, chief of curatorial affairs at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, said Washington sat for the portrait at Valley Forge, New Brunswick, N.J., and Philadelphia, where Peale — who fought at Princeton and had gone back to view it — painted the battle site as the backdrop with the college in the distance.
