George Washington

TitleGeorge Washington

Date1785

MediumPlaster

DimensionsOverall: 18 1/2 × 13 1/2 × 12 1/4 in.

Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY

Object number56-S

Label TextAs there is no record of how or when this bust entered the Academy's collection, the inscription, handwritten in ink on the reverse of its base, gives it a past that is both particularly intriguing and unproven.
A bust of Washington was in the cast collection that the National Academy of Design purchased from the American Academy of Fine Arts, New York, in 1842. The inventory of the National Academy's property published in 1846 lists two busts of Washington, numbered 61 and 75, both identified as by Houdon (that is, after Houdon's original image); one of these may be assumed to have been the example acquired from the American Academy. In 1845 the sculptor William J. Coffee had requested the Academy's permission to make a cast from "the bust of Washington" again, presumably the one acquired from the American Academy. The purpose of Coffee's request would likely have been to acquire a Washington bust for himself. However, the second example recorded in the 1846 inventory may have been one made by Coffee-as a "price" for the permission to use the Academy's bust as a model. The Academy inventory compiled in 1852 again lists two busts of Washington, still as numbers 61 and 75. But no author is credited for the latter.
In 1932 the art historian Gustavus A. Eisen recorded the Academy's Washington bust as being a Houdon cast. Clearly, however, he had not seen the object nor obtained any statistical information about it. Thus the association with Clark Mills's casts does not seem to have occurred to him. If the ink inscription on the bust now in the collection is accepted as accurate-that is, that the Academy's plaster is one of a number of casts made by Mills-then it could not be either of the examples listed in the nineteenth-century inventories. It is, however, probably the single example recorded in the inventory published in 1911. The fragility of plaster and the hard use given the casts in any art school make their survival precarious; thus it would not be unusual for the two earlier casts of the Washington bust to have disappeared due to natural causes between 1852 and 1911. Also, among the chief casualties of a fire in the Academy's building in upper Manhattan in 1905 were many of the casts that had been in school's section of the building. Drawing from these casts was an essential part of the school's curriculum, so replacements had to be gathered as quickly as possible. Given the circumstances, it is easy to see how making detailed records of their acquisition could have been easily overlooked.
The history of Clark Mills's copy of Houdon's original clay bust based on a life mask of Washington is well known. Mills had first seen Houdon's full-length Washington in the Virginia state capitol in 1848 and was greatly impressed by it. Probably in 1849, he made a cast of the Houdon clay held at Mount Vernon. In 1853 Mills was commissioned by the U.S. Congress to create an equestrian sculpture of the first president, using the Houdon portrait for its features, to be erected in the area of Washington, D.C., that became known as Washington Circle. Eisen believed Mills made his plaster after Houdon at about the time of this commission. However, references cited by the scholar Rosemary Hopkins in 1966 indicate he made it in 1849. Hopkins identified twelve probably discrete Washington busts that Mills made after the Houdon. Of these, three were unlocated in 1966. Of the twelve, four were bronze casts. Three of the bronzes were among the located busts, and all of them carried approximately the same lengthy "inscription" that is found on back of the Academy's plaster. None of the other plasters carried inscriptions of any kind. Hopkins used the term inscription but did not specify whether the text she quoted is in each case integral to the sculpture (i.e., a true inscription) or some form of labeling attached to the work. The latter seems more likely to be the case, since the texts are slightly different on each copy that she cites.
The bronze held by the Saint Louis Art Museum is "inscribed": "This bust is from the living face of Washington, by Houdon, Oct. 1785. Permission was granted to Clark Mills in 1849 by Col. Washington at M. Vernon to take a copy of the original cast in bronze. Clark Mills Sc."
The "inscription" on the bronze in the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. reads: "This bust is from the living face of Washington, by Monseur [sic] Houdon 1785 Permission was granted to Clark Mills in 1849 by Col. Washington at Mt. Vernon to make a coppy [sic] of the original cast in Bronze. Clark Mills / Founder."
The "inscription" on a privately owned bronze example reads: "This bust is from the living face of Washington, by Monseur [sic] Houdon 1785 Permission was granted to Clark Mills in 1849 by Col. Washington at Mt. Vernon to make a coppy [sic] of the original cast in bronse [sic]. Clark Mills / Founder."
The message on the Academy's plaster is almost exactly the same as that on the Saint Louis bronze, with the significant-and puzzling-difference of dating Mills's work at Mount Vernon to 1853 instead of 1849. This discrepancy suggests that the inscription written on the Academy's plaster bust was copied by an unknown previous owner, using the bronzes as a guide-thus "improving" the dating based on knowledge of Mills's commission for the equestrian bronze of George Washington.