Welcome to First in Peace!

The Athenaeum Portrait is one of the most iconic images in American history and, perhaps, the most famous image of George Washington. Painted in 1796 by Gilbert Stuart, the portrait is the basis of Washington’s image on the dollar bill and is now jointly owned by the National Portrait Gallery and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. John Neal, an early-nineteenth-century writer and art critic, wrote, “Though a better likeness of him were shown to us, we should reject it; for, the only idea that we now have of George Washington, is associated with Stuart’s Washington.”