George Washington as a man of his era was a renown sportsman, particularly for his horse back riding expertise and for his love of dogs. The scene in the below engraving tells much of a tale about himself, his family and his times, but through the lens of the mid-nineteenth century.
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| Source: Library of Congress |
The title of this piece is "Mount Vernon in the olden time. Washington at 30 years of age", its title and depiction is a romanticized view of Washington and his environs. This depiction indicates that he is age 30 years of age, so the year is intended to be about 1762. By that year a structure had existed on the property along the Potomac for roughly 28 years, so it hardly seems an "olden time" for Mount Vernon. George had resided there since late 1754, or about 8 years. Initially he rented it from his late half-brother's widow Anne, who died in 1761 when it then came fully into his possession. I suppose it is "olden times" relative to when the engraving was produced in 1856, and not to the age it represents for the estate or George.
The Encyclopedia Virginia provides a meaningful description of the scene.
This mid-nineteenth-century engraving depicts a post-hunting scene in an outbuilding at Mount Vernon, the Fairfax County plantation then owned by thirty-year-old George Washington. The future president, dressed in buckskin with a powder horn strung across his chest, sits after a successful hunt. Washington's dogs are at his feet, as well as part of the bounty of the day—several birds, a duck, and a hare. At the back of the room, an enslaved man wearing a head scarf weighs a large dead stag. At bottom right, an enslaved boy sits next to a wicker carrying basket. At right, George Washington's wife, Martha Custis Washington, wears a fine gown and pearls in her hair as she brings in two goblets and a refreshing drink for Washington and his hunting companion. Martha is accompanied by a well-dressed girl and boy—her two surviving children from her previous marriage to Daniel Parke Custis. The columns of the Mount Vernon mansion can be seen through the open doorway.
The engraver Henry Bryan Hall blatantly appears to borrow from John Wollaston's portrait of a young Martha Washington which was painted in 1757 (or 5 years earlier).
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| Sources Museums at Washington and Lee University: Online Exhibits Mount Vernon Ladies' Association |
