Hi everyone and welcome to Weight What, where we explore the weird, the wacky, and the wonderful here at the Portland Art Museum. My name is Philippa and I'm going to be kicking us off today with something that I initially found completely uninspiring. George Washington. Now don't get me wrong, but if there are only 24 hours in a day and more than 14,000 works on view at the Portland Art Museum, Washington's just not where I choose to spend my time. I mean, he's everywhere in your classrooms, in your history textbook, even in my wallet. And then I realized it's not just that there are a lot of Washington's around. There are a lot of this Washington around. The artist Rembrandt Peele spent the last 35 years of his life painting the same portrait over and over and over again. He made more than 75 copies of this one portrait, another spread throughout the entire United States. So that got me thinking. Think about how long it takes to paint one of these. And he painted almost 75. Why? Why would you paint so many copies of one portrait? So I called it an expert. The Peel family are fascinating. They are this dynasty of artists who lived in Philadelphia. Rembrandt Peele painted, he actually did 79 portraits, more than 75. Wow. Yeah, yeah. And then he started to start on this compendium of information that he got about the real Washington. When you saved the real Washington, this isn't a picture of Washington? Yes and no. Any portrait is somehow subjective, isn't it? Even a photographic portrait. Rembrandt Peele was taken by his father as a very young artist to paint Washington from life. He had painted an original. And he painted the master from which he made copies, called Patria Potter, the father of our country. And then in the 1820s, when he came back and started making these 79 copies, he interviewed people who had known Washington. And he was hoping, of course, that this would become the standard Washington. And as we all know, Gilbert Stewart's was the more popular version for the times and for other reasons as well. And that's the one that's on the dollar bill, right? That's the one that's on the dollar bill. Exactly. And that's what Stuart was a little bit flashier, a little bit more dramatic. I think his Washington is more dynamic when you agree. He deliberately left it unfinished. I think in doing that, well, he did it for a practical reason and he could make a lot of copies. Also, there's this sense of linking the past and the future in a way through not quite finishing it. Rembrandt Peele, who was, as I say, more interested in neoclassicism, which is this kind of almost photorealism in a way and has, as its subject matter, ideas about patriotism and sacrifice for country and things like that, it comes about in France after the French Revolution. So it makes sense, right? Yeah. So it's almost like building off of this entire mythology. Exactly. So interesting, because it's sort of these two artists trying to get Washington to come into the present. To come into the present, right? And Gilbert Stewart is doing it by making it look like it's a sketch. It's very of the moment. Yeah. And we have Rembrandt Peele doing it by trying to make it look almost photorealistic, like Washington's there. iconic. Yes. timeless. Yeah. But he must have had buyers for these. Yes, he had buyers for both the engravings and for the portrait itself. Who was buying them? Private citizens, you know, out of patriotism, out of oil, you know, out of, again, a nostalgia about the beginnings of the country, a version that you could hang in your sitting room, or your parlor. So this would have actually been kind of a domestic object? Yes. Yes. What does that say about the person who hangs like Washington in their living room? I'm trying to just wonder that too. What do you think? I wonder if especially like if you're hanging it right before the Civil War. I mean, he's got this very noble gaze over you. I mean, I wouldn't want him, you know, judging me as I ate my fish and chips and I ain't be like, be a little intimidating. Yes. Yes. So this is, you know, this is not a portrait and it is a portrait. It's a souvenir in a way, it's sort of a high-priced souvenir made at a time when people were very much interested in looking back at more stable, heroic times. So there you have it, the weird and wacky history of our own personal Washington and his 78 closest friends. Thank you for watching and we'll see you next time.