The Washington Family
John Sartain, American, 1808 - 1897
after Edward Savage, American, 1761 - 1817
about 1840
Engraving on wove paper
Overall: 16 1/2 × 24 in. (41.9 × 61 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Stanley P. Miner, Class of 1922
PR.975.87
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
19th century
Object Name
Research Area
Not on view
Inscriptions
Inscribed, in plate, lower left to right: PAINTED BY EDWARD SAVAGE GEO. WASH.N PARKE CURTIS GEN'L GEO. WASHINGTON ELEANOR PARKE CURTIS. MARTHA WASHINGTON. WILLIAM LEE. ENGRAVED BY J. SARTAIN.
Label
Based on a painting from 1789–96, this print shows George Washington, his wife, Martha, and their two grandchildren. The original painting also includes Christopher Sheels, an enslaved attendant to the president, on the right side. Sheels’s presence perhaps signified how critically important the labor of enslaved people was to the household and the economy of the young nation. Sheels has been notably left out of Currier’s print, and the location has been changed to a harbor rather than Mount Vernon, Washington’s Virginia plantation estate on which at least 577 enslaved people were held and forced to work during his lifetime. The Washington family was a popular subject for 19th-century prints.
How does Sheels’s presence or absence in this image impact our understanding of slavery’s role in the founding of the United States?
From the 2026 exhibition Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, curated by Amelia Kahl (Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming) and Alisa Swindell (Associate Curator of Photography)
Course History
FREN 3, Intermediate French, Annabelle Cone, Winter 2013
HIST 16, AAAS 12, Black America to the Civil War, Rashauna Chenault, Winter 2013
HIST 27, WGST 23, Gender and Power in American History from the Colonial Period to the Civil War, Leslie Butler, Spring 2012
ITAL 3, Introductory Italian III, Scott Milspaugh, Spring 2013
FREN 3, Intermediate French, Annabelle Cone, Winter 2013
FREN 3, Intermediate French, Yasser Elhariry, Winter 2013
WRIT 5, America's Founding Fathers: Why They Still Matter, Marlene Heck, Winter 2015
HIST 7.32, Civil War Photography, Robert Bonner, Spring 2019
HIST 7.32, Civil War Photographs, Robert Bonner, Winter 2022
English 52.20/African and African American Studies 82.11, Reading Between the Color Lines in 19th Century American Literature, Michael Chaney, Winter 2024
Writing 5.20, Foundations at Dartmouth, Doug Moody, Fall 2024
Writing 5.23, Foundations of Dartmouth: Samson Occom, Edward Mitchell, and the History and Cultures of Native American, African American, and “Minority” Students at Dartmouth College, Doug Moody, Winter 2025
Exhibition History
Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, Jaffe and Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 20, 2025 - July 11, 2026.
Lower Jewett Corridor, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 23-March 21, 1976.
Unlayering Stereotypes: Selections from the Permanent Collection For Teaching Cultural Anthropology, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Anthropology 7, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 24-August 20, 1995.
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