Washington for Sale to the Highest Bidder

Tomorrow Christie’s will auction this portrait of “George Washington at Princeton” by Charles Peale Polk (1767-1822). Polk used his uncle and mentor Charles Willson Peale’s 1787 portrait of Washington as the basis for the face, and made many copies of this image. This particular copy has been owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and is being sold to benefit the society and the Philadelphia History Museum now growing out of the Atwater Kent Museum.

In January 2009, Christie’s sold another version of the same portrait for over $600,000, well over the estimate. But then the buyer was Mount Vernon.