George Washington

Charles Peale Polk received his artistic training from his uncle and namesake, Charles Willson Peale. In 1789 Polk began making copies of his uncle's 1779 portrait of George Washington at the Battle of Princeton, New Jersey, a copy of which hangs directly to the right. Both Polk and Peale portrayed Washington in front of Nassau Hall on the campus of Princeton University, where the battle had been fought. Peale's influence on Polk's work can be seen in the use of graceful S-curves on the lapels of Washington's coat and in the oval shape of the general's head. As Polk matured as an artist in the 1790s, however, he developed his own style, distinguished by shallow foreground space, use of line as the primary means to delineate form, and emphasis on details such as the individual strands of gold braid on Washington's epaulets.