Lawrence Washington (1718–1752) military branch British Army
Lawrence Washington military portrait
The only surviving portrait of Lawrence Washington is at Mount Vernon, where George Washington is known to have kept it in his private studio/library on the ground floor: it is the only Washington family portrait honored with a place in the Study. A group of American art experts – including James Flexner – were invited to Mount Vernon around 1966 to examine the many family portraits owned by George Washington. In their brief examination of the unsigned, undated painting of Lawrence Washington, those social historians noted that his jacket lacked a collar, which was a style of dress popular in England in the 1730s. On that basis alone, they estimated the portrait was painted in England before Lawrence left Appleby School in 1738 (to return to Virginia). This attribution was widely accepted by most Washington scholars, notwithstanding the fact that a few years later (1969) experts in colonial American military history identified the portrait as the finest surviving example of an American Regiment officer's uniform circa 1740–1742.
Although it is unsigned and undated, the portrait depicts Lawrence in his military uniform as the Adjutant of the Virginia militia. He posed wearing the scarlet "undressed" frock coat issued him in 1740–41 when he was commissioned as a Captain in the British Army, and the green regimental vest of the "American Regiment". The vest is trimmed with gold lace (as befits a commanding officer), as is the peak of his tri-corn hat. When experts on Colonial American military history visited Mt. Vernon in 1968–69, they described the portrait as "the finest example" of an American officer's uniform from the War of Jenkins' Ear, and published their research (Plate 325) in the journal for the study of military uniforms, Military Collector and Historian. The officer's cockade in his hat appears to be the same one later worn by George Washington when he had his portrait painted in 1772.
Lawrence's "porthole" portrait is nearly identical to that of his neighbor and friend, George Mason of Gunston Hall. The Mason portrait is known to have been painted by the young Philadelphia painter John Hesselius in the spring/summer of 1750 to commemorate his 4 April wedding to Ann Elibeck. An expert on the works of Hesselius (father and son), Professor Roland Fleischer, notes that early works of John Hesselius are characterized by the canvas having been primed with a dark, reddish base paint, and that some of his works were signed, others were not. With Lawrence already in failing health and known to have been contemplating returning to the Caribbean in hopes of recovering his health, the younger painter may have depicted Lawrence in more robust health than was accurate in 1750.
With (father) Gustavus Hesselius established in Philadelphia, young John Hesselius made his first attempt at establishing himself as a professional portrait painter by traveling to the Virginia capital of Williamsburg in spring 1750. There were no professional portrait painters then working in the prosperous colony and Hesselius likely expected to set up a temporary studio in the capital, counting on business from Virginia's wealthy gentry class who attended the Virginia assembly (the House of Burgesses). Unfortunately for Hesselius, the Virginia legislature did not meet in spring 1752, because of the absence of a (resident) Governor. Hesselius then worked his way back to Philadelphia by visiting the plantation estates of prominent Virginian families. It is likely that, after painting the newlywed George and Ann Mason, Hesselius may have obtained a letter of introduction to paint Lawrence and Anne Washington at Mount Vernon in 1750.
Hesselius would, later, play an indirect role in the portraiture of George Washington, when he took on a young apprentice saddlemaker who aspired to become a painter. The young teen who learned to paint in the Annapolis studio of John Hesselius in 1763 was Charles Willson Peale.
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