Mount Vernon Secures Historic Latrobe Watercolor Painting

The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association purchased at auction Friday a historic watercolor drawing by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. 

“A View of Mount Vernon with the Washington Family” sold for $602,500 at Sotheby’s in New York on Jan. 26 and was purchased through the generosity of an anonymous donor.

The image depicts George and Martha Washington with guests on the Mount Vernon piazza, as they overlook the Potomac River before sunset. This view is unique and extremely important because it is the only known life-time image depicting the Washingtons on the piazza, according to a press release issued Monday by the Mount Vernon Estate. 

“Latrobe’s watercolor depiction of the Washingtons on the piazza is the closest we will ever come to having a color photograph of George Washington and his family at home in Virginia,” Mount Vernon president and CEO Curt Viebranz said in a statement. “When we couple that with the insights the watercolor provides into the Mansion and its surrounding landscape, the information contained in this acquisition is priceless to Mount Vernon.” 

Latrobe visited Mount Vernon on July 16-17, 1796, having likely obtained an introduction to George Washington through his acquaintance with Bushrod Washington, the President’s nephew (and a future owner of Mount Vernon and future Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court), according to the release issued by the Mount Vernon Estate.

The image depicts a scene that occurred during Latrobe’s visit to Mount Vernon on the evening of July 16, and was described specifically in his journals. According to the press release, after dinner, the party removed to the piazza, where coffee was served about six o’clock, and conversation continued until dark.

The Mount Vernon Estate believes that this work of art was presented to the Washingtons by Latrobe as a gift after his visit to Mount Vernon, and that it likely remained in the house until the 1850s. It was later inherited by Lawrence Washington, son of the last family owner of the Mount Vernon estate. 

"A View of Mount Vernon with the Washington Family" will go on display as part of Mount Vernon’s landscape exhibition, Gardens & Groves, scheduled to open in February 2014 in the Donald W. Reynolds Museum & Education Center at Mount Vernon.