The Washington Family

When Savage put the finishing touches to this group portrait in 1796, the capital that now carries Washington's name was mostly a survey plan and marshland along the Potomac. He spread that plan on the table at the center of the scene. Martha Washington rests her fan on it, pointing down the grand avenue of a city not yet built, while the President sits opposite in his old Revolutionary uniform. Savage had gathered the likenesses years earlier, from life sittings early in Washington's first term, then worked the canvas up slowly in New York and Philadelphia. Standing at the right edge, half in shadow, is an enslaved man in the household's livery. Who he was is not recorded. He was long called William Lee, Washington's valet through the war, but he may be Lee's nephew Christopher Sheels, who attended the President in these years.