Museum
National Portrait Gallery
8th St NW & G St NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA
Life-size Gilbert Stuart portrait of a president, once nearly sold overseas before a national campaign saved it.
This guide to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. follows the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, painted from a single afternoon sitting when the president's new dentures left his jaw clenched in pain. It traces the canvas's journey to England as a gift for Lord Lansdowne, its more than a century there, and the sale announcement in 2000 that put a price and a deadline on keeping it in America. Look closely at the invented marble columns and eagle-carved table leg, details Stuart painted in without Washington ever in the room.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.