WEBVTT

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(gentle orchestral music)

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(upbeat violin music)

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- The Department of State
has over 250 culturally

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significant properties around the world

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as well as over 16,000 heritage assets

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located within diplomatic facilities

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at over 200 diplomatic
posts around the world.

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The Office of Cultural Heritage
was established in 2015

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essentially to conduct
a stewardship program

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for the care of the Department of State's

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culturally significant
properties and heritage assets.

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- As stewards of these objects

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we have a role to conserve them,

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so their conservation,

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but we now have an expanding
role to communicate about them

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and to educate people.

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- Despite the diversity

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of the Department of
State's Heritage Collection,

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we don't actually have

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very many paintings in the collection.

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There is, however, one
very prominent painting.

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It hangs in the ambassador's
residence in Paris.

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It is a full length portrait
of George Washington

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after the Battle of Princeton,

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attributed to Charles Willson Peale.

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This painting was introduced
to me by my colleagues

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at the Office of Cultural Heritage.

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It had been identified as
a priority for conservation

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and some preliminary
research had been conducted

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about its history and provenance.

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The Paris portrait was donated

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by Caroline Ryan Foulke in 1989
following her death in 1987.

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Mrs. Foulke refers to the painting

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as the Laurens-Albemarle portrait.

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Yet we didn't have sufficient
documentation in our records

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to confirm that it was
in fact that picture.

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- And we learned that it
had an exceptional story.

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And I think one of the key things

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that really led us to realize
how important this project is,

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is that the portrait that we think we have

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had actually been out of the
academic eye for over 60 years.

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And if we could help
scholars, Peale scholars,

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and art history scholars to know more

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and also just to know that
this portrait is in good hands

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and is being properly cared for,

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I mean that would be
a win-win right there.

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- There was tremendous enthusiasm

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from the art historical community

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specifically about the
possibility that it could be

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the Laurens-Albemarle portrait.

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Knowing that the painting
required conservation

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the Office of Cultural Heritage
wanted to embark on a study

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in advance of that to inform treatment.

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I was in search of a Peale scholar

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as well as a conservator with
expertise in authentication.

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- I first became involved in this project

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through a phone call from Lauren Hall

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who said to me, most surprisingly,

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"Would you like to go to
Paris to look at a picture?"

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(Carol chuckles)

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I thought it was a joke.

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Provenance is really critical here

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because the picture sort
of had a disappearing life.

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Success is putting the two pieces together

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of the beginning of the story
and the end of the story.

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The end of the story is

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it's coming to the embassy here in Paris,

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and I decided that what I needed to do

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was construct a timeline
and put down what I knew.

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And so this timeline turned into something

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that was constantly edited.

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(light orchestral music)

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It was commissioned by Henry Laurens.

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It leaves Philadelphia in
1780 with Henry Laurens

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who is going to the
Netherlands to raise money.

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So this picture is taken by Henry,

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who probably commissions it privately,

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but decides to take it
as a diplomatic gift

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to the Netherlands.

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So we have a terminus date

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of when it's on the ship
leaving Philadelphia.

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So that's the beginning
of its sort of life.

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Then it goes, starting
across the Atlantic,

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it gets captured by British Captain Keppel

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who takes it to his
country estate in London.

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So George Washington has been captured

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and Henry Laurens too was captured

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and he was taken to the Tower of London

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and locked up for a while.

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I had to follow this in the 20th century.

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So I'm dealing with an 18th
century painting's life

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in the 20th century.

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The Paris portrait that had
been seized by Keppel earlier

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and taken to the Albemarle
estate was put at auction

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by the Lords Albemarle in
1946 at Sotheby's in London.

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Was bought by Mr. Davey

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and he was working at that
time for Knoedler & Company,

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and he was intending to
take it back to New York,

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and in fact had it loaded on board a ship

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where he met another New York dealer

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who purchased it from him.

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So when it docked in New York,

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the picture belonged to
someone else, Mr. Rousuck.

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So I ended up going

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and doing a lot of
research on Mr. Rousuck.

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Who is this man?

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He wasn't, to me, a well known person.

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He dealt in sporting art

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who has a gallery at that
point called Scott & Fowles.

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And so all those questions, actually,

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not even about the picture itself,

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but about the personalities
involved around the picture.

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Did this help develop the chronology?

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- Carol's research was incredibly thorough

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and it contextualized so many
physical pieces of evidence

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that we observed over
the course of the study.

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There were several objectives
to the authentication study,

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one being that we establish
a more complete history

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of the portrait in our collection,

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as well as to establish comprehensively

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the existing condition
of the portrait in Paris.

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- When I first learned about the project

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and that there was a possibility of

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analyzing a real Charles
Willson Peale portrait

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of George Washington, I was so excited.

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- A key aspect of this project
has been relationships.

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We established relationships
with a number of institutions

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that either had versions of

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the "Washington at Princeton"
portrait in their collection

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or other known Peale works.

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- Charles Willson Peale made
many copies of his work.

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Family members made copies of his work.

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But how close these copies
are is the critical question.

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- Our goal was to develop a baseline

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of what those paintings should look like

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and how they were made

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in order to be able to
evaluate the Paris picture

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and see if it matched.

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- We started comparing the Paris portrait

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to the portrait it's based on

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which is Charles Willson Peale's

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1779 "Washington at Princeton".

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That picture,

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which is in the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts now,

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was commissioned by the
Pennsylvania Assembly.

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That was our critical, critical picture.

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- That painting originally hung

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in the Pennsylvania State House,

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which is now known as Independence Hall.

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Of the "Washington at Princeton" series

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this initial painting hanging in PAFA

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is the only one that
was painted from life.

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- One of the most special
features about the PAFA portrait

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is the compositional
changes we were able to see,

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which gave us insight
into how Peale worked out

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the composition that we see today.

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He didn't get it right the first time.

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He painted George standing in
the middle of the portrait.

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Some of the angles were wrong.

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The hat was in a different location,

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and I was able to see
that using infrared light,

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and it was really exciting

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to see something that no
one else had seen before,

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since maybe Peale himself.

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- After our visit to Philadelphia,

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the team met in the Washington DC area

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and our next visit was to Mount Vernon

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where we were able to see their
1780 three quarter version

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portrait of "Washington at Princeton".

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- I used my same system

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that I had developed
for the PAFA research.

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I did a condition evaluation.

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I imaged the painting
using visible ultraviolet

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and infrared radiation,

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and I did elemental analysis with XRF

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to learn about the pigs that were present.

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And I also had access

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to take physical samples
from that painting,

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which turned out to be extremely useful.

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- What we were looking
for was similar materials.

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We wanted to be able to say yes,

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this kind of canvas, this kind of pigment.

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And we also were allowed
to go to the US Senate

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and see their picture.

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- The US Senate collection
has the second version

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of the "Washington at Princeton" portrait

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hanging at the US Capitol.

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- I brought my same system

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and approach to the Senate
painting as I did at PAFA

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and Mount Vernon.

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Again, I looked at the elemental analysis

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that I got from the Senate

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and I was seeing some
distinct similarities.

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At this point I had visited
a number of Peale paintings

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and looked very carefully
at them and analyzed them.

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And I had a very good understanding

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about what one of these
paintings should look like

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and how it would've been made.

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And it was time to take that
body of knowledge to Paris

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and compare it to the Paris picture.

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- The looming question
as we departed for Paris

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was whether or not our picture is a Peale.

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- A couple of days before we
went to Paris for the project

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Carol Soltis shared with me a photo

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she had recently uncovered
from a 1946 Sotheby's catalog

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that was the last known picture

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of the Laurens-Albemarle painting.

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- Couldn't tell a lot
because it was taken in 1946

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and it was just not a high
resolution kind of image,

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but it looked compatible.

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- It looked like an old picture.

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It looked grainy.

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It looked like there was dust particles

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but there were some things
that really stood out to me

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that looked like features that
would only happen to paint.

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And in particular, I saw a circular shape

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and I thought that looks like something

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called impact crackle.

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Could just be an optical illusion.

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But I made a few notes of things

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that I thought could be
part of the paint layer

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and I made a diagram

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and I thought I'm gonna
look at the painting

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when we get there and see if
maybe I can find any of these.

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- In 2019, I had the opportunity
to see the Paris picture

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hanging in the Louis XVI
salon at the residence.

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- Our "Washington at Princeton"
was put up on the wall

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in the master's residence
when it was loaned

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and then later bequeathed to us.

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And we were glad that it was on the wall,

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but that was basically all the care

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that was being taken at that time.

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The cultural heritage program

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didn't even exist at that time.

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- My initial impression was that

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there had been heavy interventions.

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- The life of the Paris picture,

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it gave us pause because of its condition.

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- When Carol and I walked
in there and looked at it,

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we both, we looked at each
other and said, oh, thank God.

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This thing looks more like
the other Peale portraits

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than we thought it was going to.

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Then I pull out my diagram
and the 1946 picture

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and I start looking at the painting.

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And in particular I wanted to look for

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that concentric circles

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and I immediately saw it.

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And it was in exactly the same place,

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and I thought we are
really onto something here.

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- The painting was deinstalled.

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It was taken off of the wall.

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The dust cover was removed from the back,

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and that gave us in-person access

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to the back of the picture.

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There are a number of labels
on the back of the picture,

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and we were each trying
to take pictures of them

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and interpret them.

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Some were in better condition than others.

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Some were less legible,
some were more legible.

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And I remember looking
down, I was next to Carol,

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I remember looking down

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and I said Scott & Fowles and
she said, "Scott & Fowles".

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- Finding the label for Scott
& Fowles gallery in New York

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was perfect.

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- This gallery was E.J.
Rousuck's gallery in New York.

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E.J. Rousuck is the last documented owner

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of the Laurens-Albemarle portrait.

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So despite the fact that we don't have

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definitive documentation of Mrs. Foulke's

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purchase of the painting from Rousuck

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we now have this physical evidence

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that the painting was in his possession.

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- Finding the label alone
answers a major problem.

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It fills in a gap,

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and it's really valuable
for the provenance research

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but it is just as important
to have material evidence.

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- The art historical

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and technical research are complimentary.

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So even though we had
this piece of evidence

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the study wasn't complete.

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Emily still needed to conduct her work.

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- She's gonna give us real science

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to go together with the more
speculative kinds of research

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than an academic does.

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00:13:22.890 --> 00:13:25.020
- The more I looked at
the portrait in person

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the more I felt that it was by Peale.

287
00:13:28.470 --> 00:13:29.910
That's the truth.

288
00:13:29.910 --> 00:13:33.720
But that is nothing more than a feeling

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because the work that I do
is about material evidence.

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You must remain objective

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00:13:41.250 --> 00:13:42.930
no matter how much I want it to be real,

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00:13:42.930 --> 00:13:45.183
because believe me, I
wanted it to be real.

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I needed the evidence.

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Carol did too.

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00:13:48.780 --> 00:13:52.860
We learned so much about the materials

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00:13:52.860 --> 00:13:55.770
and techniques of Charles Willson Peale.

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00:13:55.770 --> 00:13:58.590
I mean, we have an
incredible amount of data

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00:13:58.590 --> 00:14:03.590
that all confirms along with
my opinion and Carol's opinion,

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00:14:04.350 --> 00:14:05.790
that the painting is real.

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00:14:05.790 --> 00:14:08.590
The Paris portrait was painted
by Charles Willson Peale.

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00:14:09.969 --> 00:14:12.150
(Carol chuckles)

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00:14:12.150 --> 00:14:14.970
- It's very good news, from everybody.

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00:14:14.970 --> 00:14:16.050
- You know, the significance of this

304
00:14:16.050 --> 00:14:18.540
really can't be overstated.

305
00:14:18.540 --> 00:14:22.710
This painting has lived this
incredibly dramatic life.

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00:14:22.710 --> 00:14:24.900
It was essentially lost to history.

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00:14:24.900 --> 00:14:26.160
Through the course of this study

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00:14:26.160 --> 00:14:28.590
we've not only relocated this picture

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00:14:28.590 --> 00:14:31.020
but we've also contributed significantly

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00:14:31.020 --> 00:14:35.400
to the greater understanding
of this artist and his work.

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- There's gonna be a vast
body of new information about

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00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:41.940
one of America's most important painters.

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00:14:41.940 --> 00:14:42.813
- I think,

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00:14:43.650 --> 00:14:48.090
well, I'm very relieved that
this has all come together.

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00:14:48.090 --> 00:14:52.710
That we've been able to find
information that's substantive.

316
00:14:52.710 --> 00:14:56.280
- I'll never forget the great enthusiasm

317
00:14:56.280 --> 00:14:58.350
as we all came together
at the end of the project.

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00:14:58.350 --> 00:15:01.470
Everyone felt that they
had done something good.

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00:15:01.470 --> 00:15:04.650
That they had participated
in something that had value.

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00:15:04.650 --> 00:15:08.730
- The discovery of a
formerly lost Peale portrait

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00:15:08.730 --> 00:15:12.480
is really the discovery
of a national treasure.

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00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:16.920
- Projects like this
really speak to the mission

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00:15:16.920 --> 00:15:18.930
of the Office of Cultural Heritage

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00:15:18.930 --> 00:15:22.530
and why the Department of
State established our office

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00:15:22.530 --> 00:15:23.820
to begin with.

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00:15:23.820 --> 00:15:28.820
And that is to promote the
preservation of American history,

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00:15:29.100 --> 00:15:30.840
diplomatic history

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00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:33.617
and the cultural patrimony
of host nations abroad.

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(gentle orchestral music)