Adolph Ulrich Wertmüller had a successful career in his native Sweden and in France before he came to Philadelphia, the capital of the new United States, in the 1790s. He, like scores of other artists, was hoping for commissions for portraits of statesmen and government officials, of whom George Washington was certainly the most desired. Washington, aware of his symbolic importance, complied with many requests for portraits, and posed for Wertmuller in Independence Hall in 1794. This painting, which is strikingly different from Gilbert Stuart's iconic image, familiar from the dollar bill, was given to the Museum by descendants of the family that had purchased it from the artist's estate. Wertmüller's emphasis on the texture of Washington's velvet suit, the dusting on his shoulders from his freshly powdered hair, and his frilly lace jabot characterizes the president as something a dandy, just as his representation of a long, thin face and close-set eyes gives Washington an aristocratic appearance, which must have appealed to the sizeable faction who wanted the new government to have the splendor of a court with a kingly chief executive. Darrel Sewell, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 269.